Area job growth slows

While the greater Charlottesville area saw a bit of job growth in 2007, the region grew at a more sluggish pace than it had in recent years, according to a new employment report that will be released today.

An estimated 2,563 jobs were added to the Charlottesville area’s economy last year, marking a 2.5 percent rise in the region’s total number of private and public sector jobs, according to the report by the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce.

In 2006, 3,763 jobs were added to local businesses and government agencies, marking an increase of 3.5 percent over the previous year’s total employment.

“Not long ago, Charlottesville was one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the state,” said Bill Mezger, chief economist at the Virginia Employment Commission. “It has slowed down like everybody else.”

During 2008, Mezger said, the Charlottesville region’s job growth has started to lag behind Lynchburg, Harrisonburg, Winchester and elsewhere. Out of the top nine metropolitan areas in Virginia, Charlottesville’s job growth is ranked eighth. It is too early to tell, he said, if the recent slowdown will be a long-term challenge or merely a temporary hiccup.

The new Chamber of Commerce report shows that the construction industry shed a small number of jobs in 2007. Two analysts said they suspect that number has declined further in 2008.

At the same time, there were a few bright spots identified in the report. The leisure and hospitality industry enjoyed the addition of 681 jobs last year. And the business and professional services sector — which includes legal, accounting and computer services — saw the addition of 896 jobs, according to the report.

“It doesn’t come as a real surprise,” said Chris Lee of Piedmont Virginia Companies, a diversified construction firm. Lee is also chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. “We’re moving more to a service-oriented economy.”

Not every locality saw the addition of new jobs in 2007, according to the report, which examined data from Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson.

Fluvanna, Nelson and Charlottesville all lost private sector jobs last year, the report found. Charlottesville lost 924 such jobs, Fluvanna lost 170 and Nelson lost 67.

Over the past 12 years, Charlottesville experienced a net loss of 419 jobs, a decrease of 1.1 percent, according to the report.

Chris Engle, Charlottesville’s assistant director of economic development, said that Charlottesville is outperforming the job growth of other cities around Virginia. Roanoke saw a loss of 5 percent of its jobs from 1995 to 2007, Engle said, while Richmond lost 6 percent and Petersburg lost 8 percent.

“In the grand scheme of things, when compared to other cities, we’re not doing too badly,” he said. “At the same time, it is concerning.”

Engle added that he is skeptical about the data included in the jobs report, saying that it may be partly skewed if employers in Charlottesville mistakenly say they are located outside the city’s boundaries.

Although the brakes may have been applied to the area’s job growth, the report also shows that the Charlottesville region still enjoyed sizable job growth over the past dozen years.

From 1995 to 2007, the area’s total number of jobs grew from 80,901 to 104,658 — an increase of 29.4 percent, or 23,757 jobs. Of those jobs, 16,557 were in private sector, while 7,201 were in the public sector. The vast majority of the area’s public sector job growth is related to the University of Virginia and the UVa Medical Center.

Timothy Hulbert, president of the Chamber of Commerce, said that the report paints a mixed picture of the local economy.

“You’ve got to look at both ends of the spectrum,” he said. “There’s good news in there and there’s stuff to be concerned about.”

Charlottesville has a history of outpacing the national and state averages when it comes to job growth, even in a period of economic malaise, said Michael Harvey, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development.

“We’re not totally divorced from what’s going on in the national economy,” Harvey said. “Our numbers did slow, but I expect that reflects what’s going on in the macro economy. It doesn’t surprise me that our numbers are down, but we’re still OK. A lot of people out there would like to have 2.5 percent job growth.”

Harvey said he expects the Charlottesville region’s economy to recover more rapidly than the rest of Virginia and the rest of the nation. However, he added, it is anyone’s guess when that recovery might begin.

“It could take a while before things start to turn around,” he said.