Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 19, 1990 TAG: 9006190198
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Richmond Planning District has a larger number of factory employees, but the number of factory workers in West Piedmont - 41.1 percent - was the highest among the 22 planning districts in the state.
The UVa Center for Public Service has prepared a profile of the economy during the past decade in the counties of Franklin, Henry, Patrick and Pittsylvania and the cities of Martinsville and Danville.
Employment growth in the district for the decade was only 1.3 percent a year, less than half the 3.6 percent annual rate for the state. By comparison, job growth in the Fifth Planning District, based in Roanoke, was 2.5 percent annually in the 1980s.
More than 80 percent of the job growth was in the Henry County-Martinsville and Pittsylvania County-Danville areas.
But the smaller counties had higher employment growth rates. Patrick's rate was 3.5 percent a year, almost up to the state average, and Franklin had a 2.8 percent annual increase in employment.
Manufacturing dominates the economy of West Piedmont, said David Argue, an author of the report. Factories have replaced tobacco and other farm crops, for the most part. Farm employment was down to less than 5 percent of the total employment of 125,822 people in 1988. More than 11,000 jobs were added in the decade.
Danville is still the state's largest tobacco market, and Pittsylvania has the largest flue-cured tobacco crop. Half of the farmers were in Pittsylvania, one-fourth were in Franklin, there were a handful in Patrick and the remainder were in Henry, Argue said.
Textile manufacturers suffered "severe employment losses" in their struggle against strong international competition, especially from low-cost companies in South Korea and Bangladesh. Argue did not have a total number of jobs lost to overseas competition. However, the 75 publicly held textile companies in the state in 1980 were more than cut in half to 35 by 1988. Layoffs came at other plants.
Martinsville has the largest concentration of textile workers in the state, and Dan River Mills has been a leader in the industry. Most of the district's furniture jobs are in Martinsville and Henry County. Franklin County has a concentration of veneer plants, supplied by sawmills throughout the district.
Commuting figures from the 1980 census showed that 20 percent of Franklin's workers traveled to jobs in the Roanoke Valley, while 6 percent went to Martinsville and 7 percent to Henry County.
by CNB