ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 10, 1996 TAG: 9604100039
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
The Roanoke area's unemployment rate fell to 2.8 percent in February, its lowest level in almost seven years, according to the Virginia Employment Commission.
The statistic, reported Tuesday by the state job agency, also is the lowest monthly rate in the 22 years of the current record-keeping system. It has been equaled only twice before, in May 1974 and August 1989, VEC senior economist William Mezger said. He speculated the rate was probably that low in the mid-50s and '60s, when a different record-keeping system was used.
Statewide, the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent in February from 5 percent in January, despite several snowstorms, Mezger noted. It was the lowest statewide rate for February in six years and is even more impressive when February's weather is taken into account, he said.
Factors in Roanoke's low figure, he said, are the lack of major layoffs for a couple of years and job growth in the manufacturing sector for the first time in five years. He said employment in the trade and service industries has also continued to grow.
The low rate in Roanoke has meant that the retail and service industries, particularly fast food, are having a tougher time keeping people, he said.
In the metropolitan area, the jurisdiction with the lowest rate in February was Roanoke County, 1.9 percent. In the past, economy watchers said an unemployment rate of 2 percent or lower represented a labor shortage, Mezger said.
Franklin County had the highest rate, 4.8 percent, but that was much better than the county's 15.1 percent rate in January. The closing of textile and apparel mills in January accounted for January's high rate, Mezger said.
In the New River Valley, the unemployment rate in February jumped from the previous month's in Radford and in Pulaski and Montgomery counties, partly because of layoffs at the Volvo-GM plant in Dublin, Mezger said. In Giles and Floyd counties, rates dropped.
The Virginia jurisdiction with the lowest unemployment rate was Fairfax, 1.5 percent. The highest unemployment in February was in Lancaster County on Virginia's Northern Neck, where seasonal layoffs in the fishing industry resulted in a rate of 24.5 percent.
Virginia's manufacturing workers earned an average weekly wage of $503.36 in February, $68.66 above January's and $27.50 higher than in February 1995, according to federal Bureau of Labor Statistics figures used by the state.
The average work week in February was 41.6 hours, up 6.6 hours from January, when the work week hit a post-World War II low of 35 hours.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Charts by staff: Unemployment rates. 1. Roanoke area.by CNB2. New River Valley area. 3. State metro areas. color.