If the pace of business around the offices
of the Economic Development Authority of
Western Nevada is any indication, hundreds
of new jobs are on their way to northern
Nevada in 2009.
But at the same time, hundreds of jobs
are leaving the region as existing employers
scale back their employment or shut down
entirely.
So the question is this: Can the region
attract more jobs through the front door during
2009 than it loses out the back door?
The question is critically important for
nearly every sector of the region's economy,
from retailing to residential development to
health care.
And the news may not be good.
Moody's Economy.com, for instance, projects
that the Reno area will see a 2.1 percent
decline in employment during 2009 a figure
that translates into the loss of nearly
4,800 jobs.
That's a hard slap for a region that was
adding jobs at the rate of 7,000 to 8,000 a
year during the boom years of 2004-2006.
Even in 2007, the region eked out a small gain
in employment before losing at least 5,500
jobs in 2008.
Here's why the jobs number is important:
Jeff Hardcastle, the state demographer,
figures that almost all of the population
growth in the region comes as the result of
migration from other parts of the country.
And the reason for migration? "Probably
85 percent to 90 percent of that is due to job
creation,"Hardcastle says.
Executives such as those in the homebuilding
industry
keep a close eye on
job growth as a predictor
of demand
for their products.
"Job creation is
absolutely critical in
our industry," says
Mike Dillon, executive
director of the
Builders Association
of Northern Nevada.
Commercial real
estate broker Ken
Stark, meanwhile, has noted that the only way
that the thousands of square feet of vacant
office space in the region will return to productive
use is through the creation of more
jobs to replace those that have been in lost
during the recession.
EDAWN executives say help appears to be
on the way perhaps as early as the first
quarter of this year.
Tina Iftiger, EDAWN's director of business
development, says the organization believes
as many as nine new companies representing
employment of approximately 875 people
could be operating in northern Nevada by
April.
EDAWN's pipeline of what it terms "highprobability"
projects companies with at
least a 75 percent likelihood of launching new
or expanded
operations in the
region stands
at 150 companies.
Many of
them, Iftiger says,
are making longterm
plans that
are unlikely to
bear fruit until
the latter part of
this year.
"People are
starting to look at
how they want to be positioned when the
market turns," she says."They're not going to
move tomorrow, but they're looking at where
they want to be in the third quarter."
The flow of interested companies is building.
In November, for instance, EDAWN hosted
visits from 19 companies scouting the area
for new facilities. That's up from 14 a year
earlier.
For its part, EDAWN is trying to identify
the companies most likely to make fast decisions
that can have immediate impact on the
region's economy.
The question every day, Iftiger says, is
this: "How do we help these companies move
to success quickly?"
The activity isn't limited to Reno.
In Carson City, the nonprofit industrial
recruiter Nevada Business Connections says
it's working with four hot prospects companies
ranging from a software company to a
sporting goods manufacturer that would
employ 60 people.
But at the same time, the region continues
to lose employment in other fields.
Construction employment in Washoe and
Storey counties in October, for instance,
dropped by 4,200 jobs from a year earlier.
Financial firms trimmed their payrolls by
500. Casino and hotel employment fell by
1,000 from a year earlier.
And budget woes at city, county and state
governments demonstrate that job losses may
be spreading into other sectors as 2009
dawns.
The state Department of Employment,
Training and Rehabilitation says, however,
that the long-term employment picture in
Nevada remains bright.
Economists for the state employment
agency project that job growth across Nevada
will average about 2 percent a year through
2016.
