Former Albany Herald enterprise reporter Bárbara Rivera Holmes grew to become the primary Hispanic girl to carry a statewide government workplace place when she was sworn in Friday as state labor commissioner.
Throughout Friday’s swearing-in ceremony, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp trumpeted Holmes’ groundbreaking accomplishment of turning into Georgia’s first Hispanic girl to turn out to be a constitutional officer. The previous information reporter resigned as president and CEO of the Albany Space Chamber of Commerce after being chosen by Kemp to fill the remaining time period of former Labor Commissioner Bruce Thompson, who died in November following an eight-month battle with pancreatic most cancers.
“Like I stated final month after we introduced the appointment of Bárbara Rivera Holmes to this place, I stated that she was good, achieved, and devoted to rising alternatives for hard-working Georgians,” Kemp stated. “She additionally brings distinctive expertise in financial growth, particularly in rural elements of our state, and training on the highest ranges in our state will profit all those that are in search of work.”
Holmes will start main the Georgia Division of Labor amid rising fears of a recession as President Donald Trump’s administration levies historic tariffs that critics argue may elevate the value of U.S. items whereas disrupting the worldwide economic system.
Her predecessor, Thompson, spent a decade within the Senate previous to turning into labor commissioner in 2023, taking up a state company that had struggled to course of a surge of unemployment claims for the reason that begin of the pandemic.
On Friday, Holmes credited her household’s sacrifices that together with her grandparents in 1961 looking for political refuge from Cuba in America because the driving power in her turning into the state’s eleventh labor commissioner.
Holmes stated Friday that she plans to run for a four-year time period as labor commissioner when her present time period ends within the 2026 election yr.
“The Division of Labor is significant to our state’s economic system for supporting workforce growth, job attainment, secure working circumstances and the prosperity of our communities,” she stated.
