RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina agency that tries to help people when they're out of a job has a new leader.

The Employment Security Commission's chairman was sworn in to her job earlier this month. Lynn Holmes heads her first commission meeting on Thursday in Raleigh.

She'll get an update of the state's trust fund paying out unemployment checks to most of North Carolina's half-million jobless workers.

North Carolina owes the federal government about $2 billion it borrowed to pay unemployment claims.

That's about seven times more than the state borrowed during the last recession nearly a decade ago. Interest on that debt starts adding up next year.

Holmes is the former assistant vice-president of ethics and compliance at BellSouth Corporation (now AT&T), where she began her 20-year career, according to ESC's Web site.

Before joining BellSouth, she served as a legislative counsel in the U.S. Senate. Prior to accepting the ESC job, Holmes was the principal in Ross Holmes Group LLC, a consulting practice focused on ethics, compliance and governmental relations and policy.

She is a native of Memphis and graduated from Mount Holyoke College and from the Georgetown University Law Center. She also completed the advanced management program at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.