Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 13, 1994 TAG: 9403130005
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They move away.
That's the conventional wisdom, and it's supported by fact. This newspaper has published figures that show the region's young have indeed been voting with their feet.
But government employment and census data contain reason for encouragement. Average employment in the region is growing on par with the rest of the state. Moreover, there are signs of positive change in the kind of work people are finding and in how much they're being paid.
We report the findings today in the Horizon section. The stories are part of the newspaper's ongoing Peril & Promise series on the regional economy.
The data confirms that the Roanoke-New River Valley region is losing manufacturing jobs and that jobs in the broad service sector are replacing them. That's old news almost everywhere, of course.
But sales clerks, waiters, hospital orderlies and other low-wage occupations aren't accounting for all the new jobs. Instead, job figures show that there are more engineers, computer workers, doctors and other professionals in the region.
They don't outnumber the waiters and sales clerks. Far from it. But they're showing up in numbers sufficient to give an upward push to wage averages for the region.
Many of the new jobs are high-tech in nature, thereby dovetailing with one of the themes of the latest Roanoke Valley poll: that high-tech jobs are important to the future, and that there needs to be more of them.
"High-tech" isn't formally defined, though the term generally applies to work that has something to do with computers and requires post-secondary education or training.
(Poll respondents who advocate more high-tech jobs probably have in mind well-paying work, too, though in fact there are wide variations in pay for high-tech jobs. Designing computers is far more lucrative than repairing them or typing data into them, for example.)
Poll respondents also favor more manufacturing jobs. It's an understandable sentiment, given the jobs' reputation for paying well, but not one that would seem to hold great promise of fulfillment.
Manufacturing jobs are not only decreasing in number but, in the new high-tech environment, changing in their nature. A high school diploma no longer promises employability and middle class prosperity the way it once did. Employers' expectations are higher; the right kind of education and training accordingly are more important.
Anders Cortsen, 23, knows this firsthand. He earned a business degree from Virginia Tech, but found himself short on practical skills when he went into the job market. He's taking community college courses to bolster his credentials, while making ends meet as a salesman. His story is part of our report.
So is that of Bonnie Flagg, who was laid off in January. Her professional experience and hard-earned college degree have been of little help in the search for a new job. Ironically, they may even be a hindrance.
A "Video Classified" featuring Cortsen's photo and qualifications aired recently on Blue Ridge Public Television. Flagg's will appear soon.
A free and relatively new service of Blue Ridge Public Television, the 30-second spots are produced cooperatively with the Virginia Employment Commission's Roanoke office. Though the service is not limited to professionals, they are the most frequent users of it and that is fine with the VEC's Marjorie Skidmore.
It lets employers know the VEC does have "very high-caliber, high-quality applicants," she said. And it's a tool for the job-seekers, who need all the help they can get in a market that still offers limited opportunity for professionals despite signs of improvement in job quality and wages.
Only about 5.5 percent of the job orders received by the Roanoke VEC office between July 1 and Jan. 31 fell into the VEC's "professional/technical/management" category.
"We don't have a lot of jobs to offer those folks," Skidmore said. "It's a blue-collar market."
by CNB