Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201270169
SECTION: NEW RIVER VALLEY ECONOMY PAGE: 22 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
JUST STARTING, GOOD JOBS HARD TO COME BY
Angela Cumbee, high school diploma in hand, thought she could get hired at Federal Mogul or some other local industry, following her mother into a secure, good-paying industrial job.Instead, she's filled out countless applications without success. Like many young people, Cumbee is finding that most of the available jobs are in food or other service businesses.
Cumbee works at Food Time on North Franklin Street. Her husband, Jeff, another recent high school graduate, works at Country Kitchen on Radford Street. They're both thankful for their jobs, but are frustrated at not being able to find full-time jobs with benefits at some of the local industries.
Angela, a 1990 graduate of Auburn High School, works mostly the morning shift at Food Time, 20 to 25 hours a week since September. Jeff, a 1987 graduate of Giles High School, has been working the evening shift at Country Kitchen for about two months. He quit a job as a groundskeeper at Radford University after his work was cut to about a day a week, he said.
It's tough to make ends meet on minimum-wage, part-time jobs, they said.
"If it wasn't for our parents . . ." Jeff said, his voice trailing off into silence.
To help make it, the couple - married four months - decided to lease their mobile home to someone else to meet the payments. They moved into Angela's grandmother's house in Montgomery County, empty since her grandmother moved in with Angela's mother and her husband.
"We were fortunate to get Grandma's house," Angela said.
Giving up the trailer early into their married life was hard, Jeff said. "It hurt me. . . . I thought I was ready. . . . I was the man of the house."
Struggling to make payments on the trailer and Angela's car - her mother helps with car payments - along with other bills and groceries, caused stress and some arguments, he said.
They considered bankruptcy.
Entertainment for these newlyweds focuses on visiting friends and family.
"We splurge every now and then and go get a movie and a pizza," Angela said.
"We've had to do a lot of sacrificing," Jeff said.
The two have felt the frustration of trying to get a job with a manufacturing plant when 7,000 other people also are looking for work - most with more experience than them.
"When I tried to get on at Federal Mogul, you had to have three to five years' experience," Angela said.
Angela was one of the thousands who applied for work this summer when Rene Composite Materials announced it was coming to Giles County and when Plymouth Inc. began hiring for its new notebook manufacturing facility in Radford.
"The way they see it, if you're young, right out of high school, they're not going to give you a job," she said.
How can you get experience, the couple wonders, when companies won't hire you and you're 18 to 24 years old?
\ Velma Nester, human resources director for Inland Motors in Radford, said the plant has only one or two recent high school graduates as employees.
When deciding to hire young people, Nester said Inland looks for an "indication of good dexterity if they're looking to work in production and manufacturing."
Nester said an applicant's school attendance record also is considered, and that can come back to haunt you.
Vocational training can be an asset, she said, but that depends on the job.
"I think our teen-agers are coming out with an eagerness to begin work," Nester said. Teens are ready to commit themselves to a job; there just aren't many opportunities available.
Teen-agers barely out of high school are competing with thousands of other experienced job seekers on file at the Virginia Employment Commission - those who have an established job history, she said.
John Yearick, supervisor of employee relations and training at Corning, said the plant hired only 17 people in 1991. Its workers include a good mix of people, including recent high school graduates, those with more education and those who have been in the work force for a long time.
"We've been very fortunate with the people we've hired," Yearick said of youthful applicants.
Corning requires its workers to have high school diplomas or General Educational Development certificates. Vocational training is not required.
Yearick said Corning has been able to identify highly capable individuals with good skill aptitudes and the ability to learn. The average education level of production workers is 14 years, meaning most have had some college, he said.
As the fierce competition for jobs continues, Yearick believes, applicants who have quit high school "are really going to take a beating" in the job market.
Rick Dishon, personnel director at Radva Plastics, said he has done little new hiring. The plant uses temporary-employment agencies to prescreen workers. Radva decides whether to make a permanent hire after a temporary employee has been on the job for 90 days.
And that, Radva Plant Manager Don Hanshew said, depends on whether work is available and if the temp can do the job.
It is helpful if recent high school graduates have had vocational education because it exposes them to basic industrial equipment, he said. If employees are used to working around equipment, they're not as nervous in their first few days of work.
Hanshew said he's noticed that New River Valley schools are taking more interest in exposing students to workplaces such as Radva. Students are brought to plants for tours and school employees are asking what they can do to better prepare students for work. 32 22 YOUNG Young