VALDOSTA – A Georgia Department of Labor employee has tested positive for the COVID-19 disease, the department confirmed Wednesday. 

The employee worked in the labor department’s Valdosta career center, said Kersha Cartwright, director of communications. Her office was notified of the diagnosis Monday.  

“All of our employees in that career center are being taken care of and our facility is being thoroughly cleaned and disinfected,” she said. 

“Many of our employees were already working remotely, and we have created alternate working environments.” 

The Georgia Department of Labor has had three employees test positive for COVID-19; two are in other cities, she said.

Cartwright said all workers are recovering. 

“I think that things are going well, and everybody is doing OK,” she said. 

The Department of Labor has closed the career centers where the three employees worked to hinder a spread of the disease, she said. Staff will continue working on unemployment claims and do not anticipate service disruption, Cartwright said. 

“We have allowed those employees to work from alternate spaces, and the way that we process unemployment claims, they can be processed anywhere in the state,” Cartwright said. “We have a lot of different employees working on claims as they come through the queue so those Valdosta employees were not just working on Valdosta claims.”

Although the Valdosta employees are not physically in the career center, payments are still being made and claims are still being processed, she said.