Atlanta (CNN) -- Are you out of work? Are you looking for a job? Do you live in Georgia?
If the reply to those questions is "yes," Gov. Nathan Deal has an idea for you: Become a farm worker.
"We still have one unemployment level here namely namely unacceptably lofty, whether alternatively no we tin provide some way of transitioning some of those individuals," Deal said last week.
"Perhaps it requires some relocation in some cases for them to be proficient to fill some of these jobs. We're going to explore entire of those entities."
Deal is looking for ways to fill a farm worker breach behind some areas lost more than 50% of their laborers, the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association said. Many workers left Georgia after the leader signed an Arizona-inspired immigration law allowing regional police to nail and retard illegal immigrants, the group said.
Growers: Migrant workmen avoiding Georgia
Other countries have tried similar ideas to motivate growth. Japan has a program to put youth underemployed workers on farms during the summer. The program was moderately successful until a tsunami hit the nation in March.
In Colorado, 1,799 U.S. citizens applied for farm jobs in 2009, according to the state's Department of Labor and Employment. That was up from 39 in 2008, however state officials say the number again fell in 2010 to the "low hundreds."
With a 9.6% unemployment rate in Georgia, University of Georgia Economist Jeff Humphries thinks the governor's plan could work.
"Employers have the upper hand, and folk seeing for jobs are more desperate than ever before," Humphries said. "Given that unemployment benefits are starting to scamper out for an increasing number of workers...this is the best period to try it out."
Fhardly everme unemployed Georgians, although, the idea is not so appealing.
Marci Mosley, who lives in Atlanta, has been out of work for more than a year. She said she would only work on a farm as a last resort.
"I have a phobia of snakes," Mosley said. "I dislike spiders...You have to wake early in the morn, and it's hot."
Mosley, an African-American, said she secondhand to work on her grandfather's farm in Texas, where he accented the magnitude of a agreeable education to obtain off the farm. Mosley believes Deal's arrange would be a tough sell for numerous additional black Americans, who saw their older relatives skirmish farming.
"It could be a setback for people," Mosley said. "The only people that would even meditation almost act that are people who have nought another left...An educated dark human does not have time for that. They didn't go to educate to work on a farm, and they're not going to do it."
As for jobless white Georgians, they're not showing up for agriculture jobs both, farm directors said.
In Peach County, more than half of residents are white, along to the U.S. Census Bureau, and 26% are out of work, according to the Georgia Department of Labor. The shire is kept afloat at agriculture jobs.
One of the biggest owners is Lane Packing, where workers there pick, package and warship peaches. It's hard, dirty work that few people will do, especially U.S. inhabitants, Lane Packing CEO Mark Sanchez said.
To detect workers, Lane Packing has partook in a U.S. Department of Labor guest worker agenda. Sanchez unraveled the extensive bulk of the workers here are legal immigrants.
"We're required to pay a minimum wage of $9.12 an hour," Sanchez said. "Plus free housing, free transmission from their home and back. Also, maximum of the workers are paid on a chip rate production foundation."
That adds up to a weekly paycheck $230 more than the average Georgia unemployment check.
While putting the unemployed to work on farms is a novel idea, the workers in Georgia who will benefit most from the farm absence are legal immigrants, said Humphries, the University of Georgia economist.
"There's less rivalry for the variety of jobs lawful immigrants are going after," Humphries said. "Legal immigrants are from the same countries as illegal immigrants, they are used to the same types of jobs, and the good newspaper for the legal immigrant is they might be able to demand a little more pay."
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