LOSS OF 1 FACTORY JOB WILL TAKE 4 WITH IT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 21, 1993                   TAG: 9303200097
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
LOSS OF 1 FACTORY JOB WILL TAKE 4 WITH IT
Just as new jobs can beget more jobs in a local economy, layoffs can beget more layoffs.
Virgil Thompson, job services supervisor with the Virginia Employment Commission's Roanoke office, calls it "peripheral layoff." He says it is particularly typical of the manufacturing sector.
"They're actually creating a product," he said, meaning they need supplies and services that account for other jobs.
Fluctuations in manufacturing employment also tend to be reflected in local sales figures because the jobs pay well and those who hold them therefore have considerable spending power.
The rule of thumb, Thompson said, is that one manufacturing job supports four other jobs. Conversely, the loss of a manufacturing job "eventually" will mean the loss of four other jobs.
It might not be anything as direct as a supplier's letting someone go because of the loss of an important customer. Instead, the supplier might hang onto existing employees but decline to hire as many new people as usual.
In that way, for example, the impending shutdown of Gardner-Denver Mining and Construction could be adversely affecting the future of a Roanoke Valley high school senior who's hankering for a career in industrial steel supplies.
Peripheral layoff tends to occur as a "delayed action" and to be very tough to trace, Thompson said.
"It's practically impossible. But it does happen. When Gardner-Denver shuts down, it'll definitely affect other people around here."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB