Southeast

ATLANTA — Rajeev Dhawan, longtime economist with Georgia State University, expects robust job growth in the Peach State to slow, but he sees little cause for concern. Georgia’s economy added 276,900 jobs from 2016 to 2018, according to Dhawan. He projects Georgia will add another 199,400 jobs by 2021. But it is not just the size of the employment gains that needs to be considered, Dhawan emphasizes. Some 23,400 of the 103,400 jobs created across the state in 2018 — only 23 percent of the total — were so-called high-paying “catalyst sector” jobs, meaning jobs in manufacturing, professional and business services and financial activities. The good news is he expects that percentage of catalyst sector jobs to increase in the coming years. Dhawan, who serves as the director of the Economic Forecasting Center at GSU’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, presented his economic forecast Wednesday, Feb. 27 at GSU’S Centennial Hall. Apart from the information technology sector losing 2,300 jobs in the first half of 2018, something Dhawan called an economic hiccup, Georgia’s economy is healthy. The positive effects of the job gains are reflected in sales tax collections in the state. In the second half of 2018, sales …