Savannah Chamber

16 2 private-sector industries will be different than it was in 2021-22. We expect employment in construction and the financial activities industries to decline sharply. In 2023, retail jobs will be lost due to both recessionary forces and the realignment of consumer spending from goods to services. We continue to expect several of the industries hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic to post positive growth, with the gains partially reflecting rebounds off depressed levels. Examples include, restaurants, hospitality, tourism, live entertainment, air transportation, high contact personal services, and the sharing economy. Indeed, many of these same industries were among the slowest to recover over 2020-22. Logistics, distribution, warehousing, professional and business services, the information industry, and FinTech recovered quickly. In 2023, we expect many of these same industries to post positive, but very limited job growth. Despite the recession, job growth will occur in manufacturing. That's due to some improvement in supply chains as well as the large number of manufacturing projects that are in Georgia's economic development pipeline. In 2023, we expect state and local governments to continue to add back some of the jobs lost to the recession. We expect inflation to boost state and local government revenues from sales and use taxes. Similarly, many local governments will be flush with cash due to the lagged effects of inflated property values on tax digests. Prospects for Service Producing Industries Households' ongoing shift in spending priorities from goods towards services will support the expansion of many types of service-related businesses. We expect modest growth because of recovering – or higher – demand for health care, education, business and professional services, digital services, home services, and high technology services. In addition, a long list of projects in Georgia's economic development pipeline will be building out and become operational in 2023, which creates new demand for industries that provide services to businesses. Georgia's large, well-established, cluster of Fin-Tech companies have fared relatively well. FinTech, transactions processing, data processing, cyber security, and development of software and mobile apps will continue to support Georgia's economic growth. The FinTech industry received a boost from the COVID-19 crisis because contagion fears pushed people to adopt new mobile technologies, including mobile banking and touchless payment systems. Most customers were pleased with such services and will not return to their pre-pandemic ways of banking and shopping. Georgia's Fin-Tech ecosystem is healthy. One of the main reasons why Fin-Tech companies locate in Georgia is the large number of existing companies ensures deep pools of experienced workers with the specialized talents needed. Going forward, we expect this advantage to increase rather than diminish. Georgia's post-secondary education system is focused on the production of new talent for the Fin-Tech industry. The Fintech cluster of companies in the Atlanta MSA has grown rapidly. In 2022, Global Payments acquired EVO, which expanded the combined firm's reach to 4.5 million locations through 1,000 financial institutions. The acquisition is designed to help the Atlanta-based FinTech company to expand into new markets, especially business-to- business computer payments. In 2021, Visa announced that it would create a Fin-Tech hub in Midtown Atlanta which will create about 1,000 jobs. In 2020, Deluxe announced that it will establish a new FinTech and customer innovation center in Sandy Springs, creating over 700 jobs. In 2020, Toyota Financial Services announced it will open a financial services center in Alpharetta that will be one of three national hubs and will create 150 jobs. The Georgia FinTech Academy – available at 15 of the University System of Georgia's 26 institutions – will provide the talent needed to attract more financial technology companies to Georgia. In 2023, we expect Georgia's cyber security industry to grow. The COVID-19 crisis dramatically boosted the use of online and digital services, which increases the need for cyber security. Indeed, the digital transformation of many industries, ranging from health care, to entertainment, to mobile banking, was an existing trend that the pandemic dramatically accelerated. The speed of this widespread digital transformation increases the risks of cyber-attacks, which puts Georgia's cyber security industry onto higher short- and long-term growth trajectories.

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