Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 13, 1994 TAG: 9403150167
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
During the same period, the office received 11,766 applications for assistance in finding work.
Though applications far exceeded vacancies in number, they fell considerably below VEC projections. Based on the experience of a year earlier, said job service manager Marjorie Skidmore, the office was expecting as many as 16,000 applications.
Moreover, she said, fewer than half of the applicants sought jobless benefits in addition to help finding work.
``Obviously things are better out there,'' she said.
The office referred 6,883 applicants to employers during the period, and 2,271 of the applicants were placed in jobs.
Many of the applicants were seeking entry-level positions, Skidmore said, but there also was significant activity among professionals and employed people seeking better jobs, often in manufacturing.
There were numerous applications from construction workers, she said, but they are expected to decline as the weather improves and building activity picks up.
Skidmore said the 5,736 job orders paid an average hourly wage of $6.19. The greatest number of openings was in clerical work, where the VEC office received 1,646 job orders paying an average $5.77 per hour.
Other activity during the seven-month period included 757 orders for service workers such as those employed in lodging and food enterprises, averaging $4.64 hourly; 662 orders in packaging and material handling at $5.91; 631 orders for structural (construction) workers at $6.56; 496 sales job orders at $5.83; 487 orders in benchwork (sewing machine operators, etc.) at $6.94; 317 professional/technical/-management orders averaging $10.57 hourly; and 253 orders for ``machine trades'' workers at an average of $6.62 per hour.
by CNB