Some interesting information can be found on the Montgomery County
Economic Profile provided by the Virginia Employment Commission.
(
http://www.alex.vec.virginia.gov/lmi/pdfs/communityprofiles/5104000121.pdf) Unfortunately, it does not differentiate between Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Montgomery County proper, but it doesn't take too much imagination to put two and two together.
For instance, the vast amount of the population ranges from 15 to 25
years of age. Of course, that is likely the influence of Tech. It does
not explain the steady decrease that starts at the 25 to 29 age bracket
and goes through the 85 years and older group. Either people die off
quickly here or people are moving out of the area at a fairly rapid
rate. My money would be on the later of these. (see page 5 of the
report)
On page 15 of the report is a table of the Characteristics of the
Insured Unemployed. In all categories listed (Professional and
Technical Services, Health Care and Social Assistance, Accommodation
and Food Services, Administration and Waste Services, and Construction)
Montgomery County is well above the Virginia numbers. In particular,
construction is more than twice the state level and is the single
biggest contributor.
A list of the larger employers (those having the most employees) can be
found on page 20. This is particularly scary to me as it shows how
vulnerable government revenues are to the whims of the economy.
Diversity is not what it could be. It pretty much shows that you work
for VT, RU, Town of Christiansburg, Town of Blacksburg, area hospitals,
or slinging burgers. All of which are significantly affected by
state-level funding cuts or economic downturns. (The chart on page 21
shows this pretty clearly as well. This information does, however,
point out some of the types of businesses that could be recruited into
the area to help insulate the jurisdictions from that type of impact.)
On page 22 is a graph that shows the continuing decline in new
businesses in Montgomery County since 2006 (except for one significant
spike in the 1st quarter of 2007).
Then to get to one of the real issues, that of the potential wages
paid, one need only look at page 23 to see that the largest number of
new hires are in the fields of Accommodation and Food Services and
Retail Trade (typically some of the lowest paying jobs to be had). In
many cases these are part-time and seasonal jobs.
Interestingly, it is in the Management of Companies and Enterprises
that the highest rate of Turnover occurs (52.5%) as noted on page 24.
Does this mean that people come here just to get experience before
moving on to better paying areas or does it mean that we don't have the
workforce base here to fill those jobs with people committed to living
here and being a part of the community? (I'm sure other reasons will
come to mind as I ponder this data.)
Page 25 sheds more light on the problems faced when it comes to
revenues for government. The lowest wages are precisely those where the
bulk of employees work. There is a huge economic disparity that shows
the socio-economic classes that are discussed in a recent issue of the
Urban Lawyer where developments are being used to isolate people based
upon economic status (more to come on that later:).
Projections for growth in certain jobs is shown in a table on page 29
and gives an indication of the jobs that are most likely to become
available. In looking at that, one could use the data to predict some
of the businesses that could be sought for the area. More importantly,
it gives an idea of the educational programs that could be included in
the area to make sure that local people are getting the training rather
than having to bring more people from other areas in to fill those
positions. This would help to provide jobs for our area's children.
This is followed on page 30 by jobs that are projected to decline.
Again, this gives important information on who may want to start
looking for additional training or training in other fields if they
wish to stay in the area and on educational programs that could begin
to cut back rather than take a chance on flooding a field with trained
people but no jobs.
I could go on with this for quite a while but it would be better for
you to look at the data yourself. Please feel free to share your
opinions on what you think this data means to our area.