Job losses to continue for at least a year, predicts Dhawan

By Michael E. Kanell

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The flood of job losses in Georgia will slow, but not stop for at least another year, according to Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Georgia State Economic Forecasting Center.

The state has hemorrhaged 7.5 percent of its jobs since the end of 2007, and will likely shed an additional 60,000 jobs next year, he said in a report prepared for the center’s quarterly forecasting conference this morning.

While “it is generally assumed that the national recession ended sometime this summer, the Georgia recession in terms of job losses remains unabated,” he said.

Metro Atlanta, which accounts for the majority of Georgia’s workforce, likewise represents the lion’s share of the job losses, he said.

Georgia has been hit harder than all but a handful of states, with much of the damage coming through the collapse of the housing market. Unfortunately, the state cannot count on a lift from a rapidly rebounding national economy.

Nationally, “the current recovery will be slow and drawn out through 2011 and beyond,” Dhawan wrote in this morning’s report.

The nation has lost nearly 8 million jobs since the recession began. The past quarter showed growth in the economy as measured by the Gross Domestic Product, but no indication that hiring has picked up.

Meanwhile, joblessness nationally is higher than it has been since the early 1980s. Counting jobless, underemployed and discouraged workers, roughly 17.5 percent of the workforce is out of a job.