Job Spectrum

Job seekers waiting for a recruiting upturn will have to wait awhile longer. Georgia’s joblessness rate rose to 10.1% in July -- the same number it was a year before. A lack of buoyancy in the global economy is keeping plenty of companies from recruiting -- but not all. There’re few bright spots.

"Health and educational services is one segment that has battered the downturn storm,” asserted Mark Watson, a labor market forecaster at the Georgia Department of Labor. The segment grew from 458,700 positions in year 2007 to 486,100 in year 2010.

"It's seen permanent growth, mainly from the subdivision of social assistance and health care, which consists nursing, residential and hospital care amenities," Watson asserted. "We have told folks that they cannot go wrong with careers in education or health care, and we still hold to that recommendation."

Tennille Hall, V.P. of Adecco USA, a recruiting and staffing organization with headquarters in Atlanta, stated her agency is "considering hospitals shift to electronic health check records and add to their IT, medical billing, and collections and coding employees."

Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the state Department of Economic Development, calls health care "a lashing force in Georgia's economy." "Due to McKesson and other firms, we are becoming a nationwide leader in health care information technology," he stated.