ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607260068
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Jobs
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON
A shortage of people willing to work low-wage jobs in the Roanoke Valley is pinching growth plans of tomato and onion distributor Phillip Parker.
No matter how much he advertises or how many people he hires, Parker says he always needs more produce packers and laborers. Either people aren't interested in the jobs or they don't report to work - some don't even show up for their first day, he said.
Parker said he pays what he can - between $4.75 and $6.50 an hour.
He's also tried to make Preferred Produce Co. in Roanoke a good place to work. On employee birthdays, the company buys a cake. When the company gets homegrown tomatoes, it sets out sandwich makings so employees can help themselves.
He is considering a bonus program that would pay $25 to every worker who goes a month without an unexcused absence.
"We could double our business out of this facility and we're going to. Somehow, some way, we're going to have to get quality people in here to work," Parker said.
Many other business owners share Parker's frustration.
Plenty of people want good-paying jobs. But the pool of workers who will apply for work paying $7 or less without fringe benefits is mighty shallow, according to Marjorie Skidmore, job service manager of the Virginia Employment Commission in Roanoke.
That wage is about a dollar higher than a year ago. And that's a sign that the worker shortage is worse.
Until recently, this problem didn't seem to be hurting total employment - the economic equivalent of a speedometer - which rose higher and higher because enough new, better paying jobs continued to open up to keep the economy on course.
More recently, this gauge for Roanoke, Salem and Roanoke and Botetourt counties has been stuck. It doesn't matter to state analysts how many job openings exist. They wait until a new job is filled before marking it down as an addition to the job supply.
This, coupled with a general slowdown, is responsible for employment not rising like it used to, according to William Mezger, senior economist with the VEC. Mark Vitner, an economist with First Union Corp., agrees but adds a third explanation. He said state analysts need a better technique for counting jobs, because the one they use initially misses a lot of them at small companies.
At the Virginia Employment Commission, a help-wanted bulletin board for full-time, lower-paying openings is wallpapered solid with rectangular strips of paper - computer-printed job openings.
That's where Parker, the produce dealer, was advertising last week. So was Nena Birnbach, who runs Shenandoah Acres, a Fincastle home for adults.
"I run an ad for a week. I only get two or three calls," Birnbach said. "I need housekeepers. I need food service workers. I need nurse's aides."
She pays a little more than $5 an hour. "Most of the people want $6 or $7," she said. She can't afford that.
Gale Jasper, general manager of the Truckstops of America location in Troutville, said: "The search for good people has always been difficult. It's a little bit more difficult now." He needs sales clerks.
This region posted the eighth lowest unemployment rate in the nation in April.
So let's put our minds together and brainstorm how employers lacking attractive wages can lure the workers they need. Free Gatorade on the job?
Denise Myers would be thankful for some ideas. She works for Dixie Staffing, a Richmond temporary employment firm. In her struggle to find industrial laborers - right now flaggers for road projects in the Roanoke area - she held a job fair in a suite at a Rocky Mount hotel. Problem was, Wal-Mart, which has opened a new Rocky Mount store, rented the hotel's only conference at the same time. Wal-Mart attracted the greater share of people who stopped by and even drew some away from the Dixie Staffing job fair. "That hurt us pretty bad," she said.
"I guess these job positions aren't too darned appealing," she said. Pay is $5 to $5.50 an hour. State highway crews cope with any shortages of temporary workers, but "they may have an equipment operator flagging traffic," Myers said
But over the long-term, employers may tire of placing job ads and getting disappointing results. Parker has thought about buying an automated onion bagger that could do the work of 18 people with four.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: graph - Slowdown in job growth color STAFF KEYWORDS: MGRby CNB