(The Center Square) – Just over a third of the nation’s small businesses are struggling to find qualified employees, and some of that pain is felt in Georgia.
Nationally, 34% of small business owners said labor is a challenge for their small business, according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses April jobs report.
Specific figures of job shortages for the Peach State are not available, but Hunter Loggins, Georgia Director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said labor shortages have been an issue for about a decade.
“What you’ll see is they will have jobs opening and wanting to hire immediately, but the folks coming through the door and the applicants are getting aren’t what they need either that or they’re just not getting applicants in general,” Loggins said in an interview with The Center Square.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed three bills targeting workforce development last week. Senate Bill 193 creates an adult workforce diploma through the state’s technical colleges for adults between the ages of 21 to 30. Another bill would extend the Dual Achievement Program another five years while another expands the High Demand Apprenticeship Program.
Small businesses are beginning to see some results with apprenticeship programs that allow them to give employees the skills they need.
“The business will actually pay for you to get these certain certificates through the apprenticeship programs or whatever with this business and then once you have those certifications, you can come on full-time and hit the ground running,” Loggins said.
A bill that would have given lawmakers another recruitment tool did not make it out of the General Assembly. It would have provided a credit to small businesses that offered employees who offered Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements, known as ICHRAs.
“There’s this middle ground of small businesses that it just doesn’t make sense financially that they can’t afford to offer health insurance, so what this would establish would be a credit for small businesses offering health insurance for the first time and they did they’ll get a credit,” Loggins said. ‘If they they start offering it and then these individuals could go by a plan whether it be in the private sector or through the exchange, it doesn’t matter.”
Loggins said he is hopeful the bill will be considered again in 2026.
