Georgia’s slowly recovering job market got another boost Thursday — this one courtesy of consumers’ unquenchable thirst for wireless and broadband services.
AT&T’s Atlanta-based wireless division said it needs 600 new workers ASAP to help expand the physical network of cellular towers and other hardware to support delivery of those services. Some will also work in positions such as customer service.
Whether they are using smart phones to manage their lives or streaming video, people and businesses are using up the available capacity. That can lead to slower response speeds, dropped calls and dissatisfied customers.
“You have to build additional infrastructure to deal with the increased use demands,” AT&T spokesman Bob Corney said.
The company, which already has a huge presence in the state with more than 21,000 jobs, said it is also filling 400 openings that have occurred through attrition.
The AT&T jobs are both full-time and part-time, offer competitive pay and benefits, Corney said, and can be found at http://connect.att.jobs/georgia-jobs. Most of the positions available are in metro Atlanta, he added.
The Georgia Department of Labor says there were 48,200 telecommunications industry jobs in Georgia as of April.
The announcement contributes to an increasingly positive employment outlook.
Georgia’s unemployment rate declined for the third straight month in April, and the number of jobs increased.
The state’s jobless rate has now declined, or been flat, in every month since July 2011. It dipped to 8.2 percent in April, from 8.4 percent in March.
State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler cited the creation of more than 31,000 jobs by Georgia employers as “most important.”
Just last week, homebuilder PulteGroup announced that it was moving its corporate headquarters to Atlanta from the Detroit area and bringing up to 350 jobs with it.
That deal included an incentive package that could total more than $7.3 million. Incentives have been used to lure other employers here.
AT&T isn’t getting any state grants, officials said, and there hasn’t been any discussion at this point about financial incentives. The company is expanding, a spokesman said, for the most old-fashioned of business reasons: consumer demand.
Still, the job market hasn’t fully recovered. When the recession began in December 2007, 4.6 million Georgians had jobs. In April, 4.4 million did, and the population has grown in the mean time.
Most jobs added in April were in the leisure and hospitality industry.
While Georgia wasn’t competing with other states for the AT&T jobs as it has in other situations where it’s tried to attract employers, it was able to offer AT&T a quality workforce, making it an attractive location for the expansion, economic development officials said. The expansion is mainly to serve Georgia customers.
Technology, including the telecommunications industry, has been a targeted growth sector for the state because of its growth potential.
“Technology is an industry sector inn which the state has long excelled, thanks to a strategically laid infrastructure and a large pool of tech-savvy talent,” said Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
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