By many accounts, the 2010 midterm elections were a referendum on jobs. Governor-elect Nathan Deal and other officials elected last week have promised to make job creation a priority. But how easy is it to create jobs and can any one elected official do it? Deal told supporters election night in Buckhead that he would, quote, "put Georgians back to work." But economists like Allan Essig with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute say state policy won't have much impact on job growth because the recession is a national and international problem. "On the state level, the reality is, there's very little that the governor and the General Assembly can do directly to create jobs," Essig said.Some believe there is one clear way for Deal to stimulate job growth. Christine Ries is a professor at Georgia Tech and part of a group that's re-writing the state's tax code. She says, "First step: cut taxes. Second step, reduce regulations and make whatever regulations are coming clear to reduce uncertainty." But other economists say much of the federal stimulus was a tax cut, and it didn't spur companies to add jobs. Plus, corporate profits have been on the rise so companies clearly already have money on hand to hire employees, says Tom Smith, a professor of finance at Emory University. "Just cutting a tax and giving more money back to firms doesn't automatically translate into more people being hired," Smith said. "If it did, then we wouldn't be looking at 10 percent unemployment because firms have been making money. Firms have been profitable." At bottom, companies need to be convinced there's a market for their services, Smith says. "You have to create the demand for the goods and services first in order to get firms to agree to hire a bunch of people to produce the goods and services," he said. And that's hard to do, economists say, because consumers are not spending. For WABE News, I'm Jeanne Bonner.

© Copyright 2010, WABE