Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 9, 1994 TAG: 9401050283
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Lon Wagner Staff Writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But that might be bad news for manufacturing workers: Productivity generally rises when the number of jobs declines. And the number of factory jobs continues to drop.
Roy L. Pearson, director of the bureau of business research at the College of William and Mary, sees a continuation of that trend this year.
"It's more a combination of only moderate growth nationally along with a fairly large increase in productivity," Pearson says.
Last year, Virginia's manufacturers increased their output by 1.5 percent, about the same amount by which their productivity increased. Pearson predicts a slightly larger increase, about 2 percent, in both categories this year.
Manufacturers, however, are beginning to express optimism about hiring. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, in its most recent monthly survey, found that for the first time in nearly a year manufacturers expect their number of employees to increase during the next six months.
"Manufacturers have probably been afraid that as soon as they hire new people they will have to lay them back off, and there are fixed costs associated with that," said Robert Graboyes, the economist who conducts the survey.
During most of 1993, the mid-Atlantic manufacturers surveyed expect the number of people they employed to decline. By comparison, Graboyes said manufacturers' expectations of flat or slightly increased employment is good news.
"It certainly is good compared to an expectation of decline," Graboyes said. "What has characterized this long, very slow recovery has been growth in output without much growth in employment."
by CNB