Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401220226
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: EC-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
During 1993, the Roanoke Valley economy swallowed 850 laid-off Dominion Bankshares Corp. workers without so much as a burp.
But somewhere, sometime last year, a shift in the foundation of th\e valley's economy became final. Gone with Dominion's familiar crest and red signs are middle management jobs. In their place have come data processing and credit card jobs.
Unfortunately, many of the former occupants of those management jobs are still here. They either grew up in Western Virginia or came to call it home after being transferred here from elsewhere.
These people, perhaps better than anybody, know the job outlook for the coming year; after all, they have been the ones mailing out resumes, knocking on doors, scanning classified ads and "networking."
On the positive side, they say there are plenty of jobs available. The problem is, those jobs often pay little, and the work involved would not hold their interest for long.
Take Sandra English, a 19-year Dominion veteran who was laid off Oct. 15 as operations coordinator for retirement services.
"Looking around Roanoke, I found there are a lot of jobs at lower salaries and not a lot of management jobs," English said. "I realized, if I was going to stay in the Roanoke area, I was going to have to go into something else."
She did. English signed up for the classes necessary to become a real estate agent. For two weeks, she sat through the eight-hour-a-day classes. She recently passed the licensing exam and signed on with Owens & Co.
Brenda Atkins, a 13-year Dominion employee, so far has not made the transition English did. Atkins, whose final Dominion job was as a senior systems specialist, has been looking for work since the end of August.
She heard the advice to "network" - talk to friends, relatives, church members, anyone who might keep you posted about job openings. So far, that hasn't proved fruitful.
"I've been in banking so long," Atkins said. "Most of my friends are in banking as well and I pretty much know the score - there's not much around here."
Atkins found one job at the end of December, but she turned it down because it paid about half of what she was used to making.
"I don't think I've given it enough of a shot to take that much of a cut," Atkins said.
Will the Roanoke Valley's economy create jobs for Atkins and others this year? The experts say it will - but very, very slowly.
The statement that follows will not come as a shock to many: The economic growth of of the mid-1990s is drastically different from the growth of the 1980s.
Christine Chmura, an economist with Crestar Investment Bank in Richmond, expects the Roanoke Valley's employment growth to increase at a 0.7-percent-to-1.2-percent rate in 1994. Chmura knows that doesn't sound impressive, but she points out, "The '90s are not the '80s, and when you're used to fast growth, moderate growth doesn't seem that good."
Within this new, snail-paced economy, however, the Roanoke Valley has a few trump cards that are just beginning to work in its favor, economists say.
Virginia's economy during the 1980s outpaced the national economy, primarily because it was second only to California in the amount of defense industry dollars it brought in.
Western Virginia saw little benefit from those defense dollars, but now it is experiencing few problems - the exceptions being ITT Corp. and Hercules Inc.'s operations at the Radford arsenal - stemming from defense industry cutbacks.
"Roanoke has the advantage of not being defense-intensive," Chmura said. "Something that was a disadvantage during the '80s is now an advantage."
Similarly, she said the valley did not overbuild its office space. Whereas the nation averages a 17 percent office-space vacancy rate, Roanoke's rate is 13 percent.
The Virginia Employment Commission's outlook for 1994 suggests that the state's labor force should grow to 3.5 million. That translates to growth of 1 percent, or the addition of 36,000 jobs.
Bill Mezger, senior economist with the VEC, said projected growth means 1994's economy will look familiar.
"In 1993, the state has grown just below 1 percent in employment," Mezger said, "and we're expecting a little bit better than that in 1994."
Peter Mullen presided over the final phase of the Roanoke Valley's transition away from middle-management jobs. Mullen was a training representative with First Union's development team.
In other words, from the end of 1992 through much of last year, he conducted job-search training programs for people who had been displaced when First Union took over another bank.
"That first class I went to, I saw a bunch of good people, talented people, and knew that there but for the grace of God . . . ," Mullen said.
In August, Mullen became one of the people he had been training - First Union told him his job would end in a week. He had a wife, three children - ages 14, 12 and 10 - and no job.
"I learned a lot from the folks in that class about dealing with transition," Mullen said. "You end up with a couple of things to face: this is no fun - I don't feel good about it; No. 2, my purpose is to find a job; No. 3, I better focus on those things that help me find a job."
Mullen took his own advice from the development sessions. He began networking and finding "people who will be your eyes and ears."
"I was telling somebody, `I'll talk to anybody and everybody,' " he said. Mullen plodded through September, October and most of November without finding a job. A few days before Christmas, he found a position at Virginia Tech - in training and development with the university's division of continuing education.
Before that, Mullen said, his family had cut out luxuries, such as eating out and cable television. He knows he is one of the lucky people who both found the job he wanted and found it in the Roanoke region.
"I hadn't said I wouldn't move anywhere else, I couldn't afford to do that," he said. "The reality is, you don't leave an organization after 14 years as a vice president and find too many lateral moves."
by CNB