Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 9, 1993 TAG: 9302090053
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SERVICE JOBS PUT ROANOKE ATOP LIST
A surge in companies providing specialized business services, such as computer and personnel firms, pushed Roanoke to first place in service employment growth among 47 Southeastern metropolitan statistical areas last year.Roanoke has come out of the recession because of that growth, but it is not sustainable, according to a semiannual review of economic conditions released Monday by Georgia State University's Economic Forecasting Center.
The Atlanta center placed Roanoke ahead of Miami, New Orleans and Memphis in growth of service jobs during the two middle quarters of 1992, compared with a year earlier.
That increase plus moderate gains in government employment in Roanoke more than offset weakness in manufacturing, the report says.
Without the addition of 1,300 business service jobs from a year earlier, the study says, employment in the area would have dropped by 300. There also was job growth among the health services.
A decay in manufacturing must end before more rapid employment gains are possible in the Roanoke area, says the report, compiled by economist Donald Ratajczak, director of the forecasting center. Although recovery is uneven in the Southeast, he said, manufacturing is "reasonably strong."
The Atlanta center's list of employment growth prospects placed Roanoke in a lower tier of cities growing by 1 percent or less in 1993. For 1994, however, the number of jobs in the Roanoke metro area is projected to increase by 2 percent or more.
As increases among business services slows and construction stabilizes, Roanoke's growth will pick up, the center concludes in its analysis of figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau. The analysis was done before the Roanoke Valley was hit this fall by a round of layoffs and company closings.
Strengthening of the recovery is apparent from payroll employment figures, the center said. Roanoke's 0.8 percent increase last year was the best in the state. It was even with that of Charlotte, N.C., and higher than Atlanta's.
Roanoke's poorest rankings were in population growth, housing starts and manufacturing of durable goods, such items as fabricated metal and electronic equipment.