As companies across Georgia shed jobs by the thousands, at least one organization is doing some serious hiring: the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The Atlanta regional office of the FDIC, the federal bank regulator and insurer, is ramping up staffing to cope with a banking crisis that has hit the Southeast particularly hard.

The office, located in Midtown, may boost its 340-person staff by 10 percent or more next year, said Mark Schmidt, the regional head of bank supervision. And that’s on top of about 50 new positions added this year, he said.

“Our folks are busy,” Schmidt said. “We fully expect the workload to increase for some time.”

The FDIC — which is funded primarily by banks, not taxpayers — insures bank deposits, regulates many commercial banks and oversees failures. The Atlanta office covers a seven-state region stretching from West Virginia to Florida.

New positions for the Atlanta office being advertised on the FDIC Web site, fdic.gov, include entry level bank examiners, with starting pay around $41,000, and mid-career examiners earning up to $91,000.

Some jobs have a two-year shelf life so the agency can easily trim staff when the crisis fades.

The additional staff is needed, Schmidt said, because the number of banks in trouble has grown, requiring more frequent and more exhaustive reviews. Two small Georgia banks have failed this year, compared with only one failure in the state between 2003 and 2007.

To keep pace, the Atlanta office has been paying overtime and hiring back retirees like Jimmy Loyless of Woodstock.

Loyless, 54, who retired last year as a field supervisor, said he has enjoyed being on the front lines of the biggest banking crisis in nearly two decades and helping train younger colleagues.

He said the workload has been intense.

“It’s a difficult situation,” Loyless said. “I’m sitting across the table with bank officers and directors who … are under enormous pressure to collect the loans they have in their portfolio.”