Extended unemployment checks ready; KIA plant still hiring

ATLANTA - The first checks for extended unemployment insurance benefits in Georgia are on the way... and for those who are out of work, the new KIA plant in west Georgia is still hiring.

State labor department officials are mailing the first of the checks Thursday. State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond says extension provides for up to 20 weeks of additional benefits to individuals who exhausted regular unemployment insurance and the first and second tier of Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits on or after Feb. 15.

To be eligible for extended unemployment insurance programs, individuals must be unemployed and not eligible to establish a new regular unemployment claim in Georgia, any other state, U.S. territory or Canada.

Georgia labor officials began mailing eligibility notification letters May 8. The letter provides instructions on how to apply for extended benefits.

KIA PLANT

Kia Motors has hired almost 700 workers for its LaGrange area factory, which is scheduled to go into production in December.

Kia's human resources manager, Randy Jackson, told the Troup County Coalition on Monday that the South Korea-based automaker had just added 90 more employees. The assembly plant expects to have 1,000 to 1,200 workers when it starts production and 2,500 making 300,000 cars per year by the end of 2010.

The new generation Sorento will be the first model in West Point, and a small number of test vehicles have been built since April.

Jackson says suppliers will add another 7,500 jobs, and the ripple effect will bring an additional 30,000 jobs in construction, hotels, restaurants and other businesses to the region.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2009/6/221005