Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201240147
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A $52,000 JOB? NOT MANY HERE
Picture this: A 50-year-old man, armed with a college-degree and 20 years in middle management at a respected Roanoke Valley company, walks into the Virginia Employment Commission office on Franklin Road.The office's workers, virtually numb to the jobless who parade through the doors each day, hand him a form to fill out. One question asks for the applicant's desired salary. Our man writes "$25/hr." That's $52,000 a year - excluding benefits.
It's happening, and by the looks of some recent announcements (that is, Dominion Bankshares Corp.'s cutbacks) it may be happening some more.
Most jobs advertised at the VEC average about $5 per hour. "There are not that many opportunities for those kind of jobs in the Roanoke area paying $25 an hour," said Marjorie Skidmore, job services manager.
That's when the "reality check" comes. "We would probably tell them what we tell college students coming back to the area: `You have to leave Roanoke to get that kind of salary.' "
Sure, companies out there pay managers 52 grand to manage. But those folks, for whatever reason, aren't leaving those jobs too often, Skidmore said. And Roanoke's job growth traditionally lags behind state and national averages, leaving few holes to be filled by the white-collar unemployed.
Take the recent Dominion cutbacks. The supposed paragon of financial stability, the banking company eliminated two units - and some senior executives. The news rattled some in Western Virginia because, if only for a few days, a pillar of the community appeared weak.
Now there are more unemployed white collars looking for new jobs and big salaries in a place that doesn't have much of either. "I'd like to think I'll make as much in Roanoke as I was making, but I've backed off of that . . . particularly in this environment," said one who asked not to be identified.
Skidmore said there are many others out there, trying to maintain their dignity while looking for work. There's embarrassment, shock, denial. She's even heard stories of folks continuing to leave their houses at the same time each morning so neighbors don't know they are unemployed.
The words "job security," long an oxymoron for many blue-collar workers, in this recession also ring hollow for college-degreed executives in banking, real estate and related industries.
"I probably couldn't have told you anyone who lost a job in 1981," said Richard Lynn, president of S.H. Heironimus Co. Inc., the Roanoke-based retailer. "This time I know people who lost jobs. I suspect it's hard for some of these people to find somewhere to go. I don't know what these guys are going to do."
There are the Dominion executives he knows, rattling off a few names. And there's his childhood buddy who managed a commercial real estate office in Tidewater until the home office in Northern Virginia closed the operation altogether.
Figures to back up the impression that this lengthening recession is hammering white-collar workers are hard to come by. In November, 15 percent of the 1,882 new claims for unemployment in Skidmore's office came from former professional managers. Another 20 percent came from clerical and sales people; 19 percent in machine trades, and 29 percent in construction and related trades.
"My view is everybody's hurt," she said. "It's a white-collar recession in that they're more affected than in the past, but they're not the only ones affected."
William Mezger, research economist for the VEC in Richmond, said the fact that many white-collar workers have never worried about job cutbacks makes any news of them big news. It's not the number of layoffs; it's that they're happening at all.
"Each time one of [those layoffs] happens, it makes a lot of headlines," he said. "In many cases, they are not being laid off with nothing."
\ Daniel Howes covers transportation, media and the economy for the Roanoke Times & World-News.