Georgia gained more than 24,000 jobs in December leaving the
state fewer than 19,000 jobs below the level it achieved pre-pandemic in
February 2020, but that overall number is hiding the ongoing losses in some
specific job areas. (For the Atlanta area, the gain was 10,900 jobs, after
seasonal adjustment.)
Using not seasonally adjusted data supplied by the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics and comparing employment counts of February 2020
with the most recent data of December 2021, significant employment losses
continue in the leisure and hospitality, other services, and government
sectors. These losses centered on the Atlanta metropolitan area.
In the Atlanta area, employment in the leisure and hospitality
area remains 35,300 below its February 2020 level with 26,300 of those lost
jobs in the food services and drinking places industry. At this point it is
difficult to discern how many of those missing jobs are due to the inability to
fill positions at current wage levels, and how many are due to decreased
activity by consumers who continue to cut back on their dining-out activities
due to Covid concerns.
There is some evidence that the leisure and hospitality
industry in Georgia is suffering worse than nationally because of a lack of
consumer confidence about exposure to the coronavirus. Georgia’s decision to
not enforce more restrictions, such as mask mandates or testing, may be
damaging the industry in the Atlanta area when compared to the national data.
Other services is a catch-all sector that includes a
diversity of industries. Compared to February 2020, in the Atlanta area employment
is still 10,100 jobs below its previous level. Within this sector, repair and
maintenance jobs are greater by 900 while personal and laundry employment is
down by 3,100. This still leaves 12,300 jobs missing, which are most likely
tied to the other segment of this sector – religious, grantmaking, civic, and
professional organizations. A number of these organizations provide services to
the community not provided by government or profit-seeking businesses, and it
remains to be seen how long it will take employment in this industry to recover.
The third sector is government, with a net loss of 4,300
jobs compared to pre-pandemic. Both federal and state employment show gains of
2,700 and 500 respectively, since February 2020; but these gains are offset by
a continued 7,500 job loss in local governments in the Atlanta area. Unless
these jobs are restored, there is a danger that services provided by local
governments will continue to underperform even as residents expect improved
performance.