Job growth to remain strong

You can entertain yourself during this slow holiday week by doing the math of new jobs in Washoe County: In November, the state says, 8,400 more people were working in Washoe County than a year earlier.

Assume that they're working full time and making the state's average wage of $16.49 an hour.

That makes those 8,400 new jobs worth $288,113,280 a year to the local economy a figure that does not count the multiplier effects as a newly hired insurance adjuster spends her paycheck on a high-definition TV, and the appliance store salesman uses his pay to buy a sandwich for lunch.

And while the 4.3 percent job growth in Washoe County during the past 12 months may prove difficult to repeat during 2005, nobody expects much of a cooling in the next year.

"Growth.

Total growth," is the forecast of Ron Weisinger, executive director of Carson City-based Northern Nevada Development Authority."I don't see things changing based on what we're seeing today and the work that's on the table."

The state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation doesn't yet create an employment forecast just for the northern part of the state, but the state agency predicts that job growth will run at 4.1 percent statewide in 2005.Historically,Washoe County has tracked that figure pretty closely.

A 4 percent growth rate would translate into another 8,300 jobs in Washoe County during 2005 a number that doesn't surprise Chuck Alvey.

"We have a full pipeline," says the president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada.

EDAWN, which recruits the sorts of basic jobs that bring new dollars into the region, continues to see strong interest from manufacturers and other employers who pay above the $16.49 average hourly wage in the state.

And it's not just new companies that drive job growth.

Existing basic employers surveyed by EDAWN staff and volunteers in the past year have said they plan to add some 3,700 jobs in the next three years.

Alvey's only concerns, in fact, are offshoots of the region's success in attracting jobs.Housing prices have risen sharply more than 30 percent in the past year as demand outpaces supplies.

Labor supplies are tight.

Some skilled workers are especially difficult to find.

In Carson City and surrounding areas, the pipeline of new companies is similarly full, says Weisinger.

In fact, he projects that the boom could run until 2008 as the region draws manufacturing, service and back-office employers.

"The whole region has taken off," he says.

"We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg."

The job growth cuts a wide swath across the region's economy.

Construction, which depends on growth of jobs and population, is up by 2,220 jobs in the past year.Manufacturing employment in Washoe County is up 4.4 percent, or 600 jobs.

Professional and business services employment is up by 1,900 jobs more than 8 percent.

Retail employment is up about 4 percent.

The only declines: Casino employment, down 2 percent or 500 jobs in the past year, and the related lodging industry, which lost 200 jobs.

Nobody expects things to change much for the next couple of years, although all keep their fingers crossed against a Sept.

11 sort of shock.

The state's forecasters see that the 4.1 percent growth in jobs they project for this year will cool a little to 3.7 percent in 2006.Wells Fargo economists, meanwhile, foresee 3.1 percent employment growth in the state in 2005 with a deceleration to 2.7 percent in 2006.

The Reno-area's record of job creation ranks 33rd in the nation during the last two decades.