ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601310091
SECTION: NRV ECONOMY PAGE: 22 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: HALE SHEIKERZ STAFF WRITER
It's a double bind: There's never enough money in the employee's paycheck, and the employer can't keep people on the job
Dorothy Overfelt's $5 an hour wage at a service station in Christiansburg is the most she's ever earned for an hourly job. She thinks the pay is OK for what she does, because the job is easy. But she thinks the pay should be more when she has the late-night shift.
But for this 23-year-old, the position at the service station is the best she can get. When she moved to Christiansburg from Roanoke in September, she wanted to find a waitressing job, but after applying at six or seven restaurants and not finding a job, she had to settle for her current position.
Many employers didn't like the fact that the longest she had ever held a job was for six months, Overfelt said.
"People think I'm not a good worker ... but usually it's the company I didn't like," she said.
Low-paying jobs, or those that pay the $4.25 minimum wage, are growing harder to fill as competition increases for workers. There are plenty of job openings in the New River Valley that provide higher than the minimum wage.
"The New River Valley area is kind of getting into the situation Roanoke has been ... it's getting more and more difficult to find people to fill positions to work for $4.25 an hour," said Perry Cole, acting manager for the job services division of the Virginia Employment Commission in Radford.
Since the middle of last year, Cole's division has received more orders from employers willing to pay $4.50 to $5 an hour for entry-level and low-skilled positions.
Hiring for low-paying positions also can be risky. The jobs often are considered "dead end," and employers can have a hard time keeping workers. The positions are dynamic with high turnovers.
Jeff Ligon, a contractor in Blacksburg, said he doesn't have a hard time finding laborers, but he has a hard time finding people to stay. He said he starts new employees without experience between $5.50 and $7 and is willing to increase the pay if the person is skillful. In the past year, however, only two of the 20 people he's hired have remained. Some, he said, don't come after a day on the job. Some leave for lunch and don't return.
At Leggett department store in Christiansburg, entry-level employees earn $5.25 an hour. Robin Gatewood, human resource associate, said the company has paid above minimum wage for several years, even for seasonal employees.
The store doesn't have a hard time filling positions, she said. There are always applicants and sometimes not enough jobs.
But she added that "there is a lot of turnover - something we'll fight for eternity."
Ann Ward, district manger of Manpower International Inc., a temporary agency in Christiansburg, said there has been an increase in wages in the past year in the low-paying jobs.
Hourly pay for positions that are entry level, labor intensive or require little education has increased from $4.85 to as much as $5.50 this year. Ward said the company has not paid minimum wage in the past three years.
There are fewer people to fill these positions, Ward said; therefore Manpower has to be more competitive in its wages to attract applicants
Even low-paying jobs require more skills these days, said Ward.
A person hired to load and unload a truck may now be required to do data entry to record the packages being shipped. The same may be true for a fork-lift operator.
She said people with less than a 9th-grade education or with a General Educational Development degree are now required to know keyboarding and how to operate computers.
Carl McDaniels, professor of education at Virginia Tech, points out that with minimun wage jobs workers have more than the pay to consider. He said fringe benefits and health care also should be considered.
He said many low-paying positions in retail and food services don't offer 40 hours, which is considered full time - meaning workers aren't eligible for health care or other benefits. However, there are some jobs, such as secretarial positions, that are low-pay but attractive because they offer benefits.
McDaniels said employers often limit the number of hours people can work in order to avoid paying for benefits. Often this prectice is tied not to the occupation but to the size of the company.
While many low-paying postions go to young people, Cole said, many adults also are involved in part-time employment at low-paying jobs that require them to work week nights or weekends.
"As the unemployment rate goes down, the competition for finding the entry-level worker goes up. The employer has to pay more or look for more benefits," McDaniels said.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. Dorothy Overfelt does more than justby CNBring up the cash register at the Turbo Food Mart. She also makes
sure things stay spotless. color.