
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 3, 1993                   TAG: 9312030168
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PLOP! HEAR THE JOBLESS RATES DROPPING ALL AROUND VIRGINIA

It could be the economy, which has been showing its heels to the remnants of the recession lately. Or it could be the usual season's greetings. At any rate, the job report is positive in Roanoke and pretty much throughout the state.

October's convergence of positive economic conditions resulted in Virginia's second-lowest unemployment rate so far this year.

The Virginia Employment Commission figures released Thursday had the state's jobless rate for October at 5.1 percent, bested this year only by April's 4.8 percent.

VEC economist William Mezger said October's unemployment rate is frequently the lowest of the year, because the month benefits both from lingering summertime jobs and burgeoning wintertime business.

Mezger listed the "usual good things for October": an increase in retail sales before the holidays, farm employment due to the harvest season, construction before that industry takes its winter break and students no longer included in the work force because they are back in school.

Five of Virginia's six major metropolitan areas, including Roanoke, saw their jobless rates drop. Roanoke's October unemployment rate of 4.4 percent dropped 0.3 of a percentage point. Only the Richmond-Petersburg area had an unemployment rate increase, and that was just a 0.1 percentage point.

Mezger said the Roanoke area's employment increase was at least partly attributable to Retired Persons Services in the former Sears Telecatalog Center and hiring many of the workers the former company had laid off. The former Sears catalog operation closed in September, but Retired Persons Services - a mail-order pharmacy subsidiary of the American Association of Retired Persons - started up in the same building the following month.

Among the employment sectors posting gains or losses in October were:

Government employment, with 13,300 additional jobs, an increase attributable to state and local schools becoming fully staffed for the year.

Trade employment, with 4,100 jobs. Those jobs came from harvest-related hiring, fall and Halloween sales and the start of retail employment buildup for the holiday season.

The sector that experienced the largest job losses was the federal government, which fell 2,700 jobs short of its September mark. The losses were centered in the Tidewater area, where the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth is being hit by the government's cutback in defense spending.

by CNB