MACON, Ga. — With COVID-19 continuing to spread, some local businesses have shut their doors, and others are struggling.
13WMAZ's Kayla Solomon spoke to Dr. Greg George, director of the Center for Economic Analysis at Middle Georgia State University, to find out what the spread of COVID-19 is doing to the job market.
He says two of the strongest fields include healthcare and education.
"Education -- we're not business as usual, but we're still providing our courses, our schedule is still good, we just converted to online for the most part. Then, the last thing, the healthcare industry -- that's a necessary industry, that's a good thing to have in times like these, to have that as a major part of your local economy," he says.
Here is the rest of George's responses to our Q&A.
Solomon: What is one business that keeps hiring, despite COVID-19?
George: "Big ones, nationally, like Amazon, I've heard they're gonna be hiring. The oil industry has been really dinged with the low oil prices, so that's shutting down. We're gonna see this in the unemployment numbers, Amazon can't hire enough people to offset what we're losing."
Solomon: For college seniors who are worried about employment after graduation, what recommendations would you give?
George: "A couple of things -- you always have options. One option is to consider going on with your education, thinking about getting your MBA, Master's degree of some kind, any kind of post secondary degree. When things start to stabilize, we're still gonna have a recession on our hands probably, we're gonna have a prolonged bad economy and it's going to take a while for that to recover. When it does, people can them get on with their lives. In the meantime, you may have to, if you're a graduating senior, be ready to take a lower job."
Solomon: What would you suggest to people who are on the fence about applying for unemployment?
George: "It's for trying times like this when people are in desperation and they need some funding to meet the bills while they're looking for a job, and so there's no shame in going out there now and using unemployment for exactly what its intended for."
George says here in Central Georgia and across the country, the two fields that are least affected money-wise are healthcare and education.
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