ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 8, 1995 TAG: 9512080053
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
In 1974, Gerald Ford took over as president. Most any song Elton John sang struck gold. The modern cellular phone was a decade away from being developed.
It has been at least that long since Roanoke's unemployment rate was as low as 3.5 percent in the yardstick month of October. It happened again this October in the Roanoke metropolitan area, the Virginia Employment Commission said Thursday.
The job market often registers its strongest marks in October because key seasonal industries often hit full employment in unison: Schools are fully staffed, food processors are busy after the fall harvest, and stores begin to hire holiday clerks. Construction layoffs often have not yet begun for the winter, said Bill Mezger, senior VEC economist.
Low October rates are nothing unusual, but a 21-year low for a specific month is notable. The jobless rate in October 1974 was 3.4 percent.
Linda Bass, a Roanoke municipal economic development specialist, called the new rate "amazing" for its historical significance.
Month in, month out, this year's jobless rate has hovered at about a five-year low. The rate covers Roanoke and Botetourt counties, Roanoke and Salem.
Does this mean the economy hasn't been better in two decades? Not necessarily.
Steve Hipple, an economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, said it takes several months of data to have a trend. The rate "bounces" month-to-month, and a single report is impossible to interpret, he said.
Also, the mathematical gymnastics that go into setting the rate create a certain squishiness. Following usual practices, federal analysts actually spoke to only 56,000 U.S. households and counted the number of residents in each home who were working during the week of Oct. 8-14. Formulas produce a jobless rate for each community across the nation from that data.
Had this region's October rate come out higher by just two-tenths of a percentage point, the 21-year gap would vanish. The October 1994 rate was 3.7 percent.
Because the rate is an estimate, "you have to take it with a large grain of salt," said Gerald Burgess, Botetourt County's administrator.
The jobless rate nonetheless signals trends over time because it is always calculated the same way, he said.
The only variable during the past 20 years was the inclusion of Craig County until 1980, but the county is too small to have tipped the rate up or down, Mezger said.
Bass, like Burgess, interprets the rate with caution, because it reveals nothing about the number of unemployed people who have given up their job search for any reason. Such figures, when available, say as much or more about the economy than the jobless rate, she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: map Unemployment Rates STAFFby CNB