It's been nearly a month since the state of Georgia led the nation in being the first to start reopening its economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, as Politico reports, the state has continued hemorrhaging jobs even though it has told businesses that it's okay to open up.
"Weekly applications for jobless benefits have remained so elevated that Georgia now leads the country in terms of the proportion of its workforce applying for unemployment assistance," Politico reports. "A staggering 40.3 percent of the state's workers -- two out of every five -- has filed for unemployment insurance payments since the coronavirus pandemic led to widespread shutdowns in mid-March."
243,000 Georgia residents filed for jobless claims two weeks ago, and another 177,000 filed for jobless claims this week, and the state says that the retail, social assistance and health care industries are continuing to shed jobs at a rapid clip.
Alex Camardelle, a senior policy analyst with the nonprofit Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, tells Politico that persistently high jobless claims even after the reopening show that there's "certainly nothing to signal there’s any return to economic stability or recovery happening right now."
Laura Wheeler, associate director of the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University, tells the publication that simply reopening the economy during a pandemic will not bring demand back to where it was earlier this year.
"Think of a restaurant: They’re not going to be able to bring back their entire staff because they’re just not going to have the clientele," she says.
