Little growth expected in Springfield job market

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by Maria Hoover|ret||ret||tab|

Inside Business Editor|ret||ret||tab|

mhoover@sbj.net|ret||ret||tab|

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While several area companies plan to do some hiring in 2004, a majority of companies expect employment levels to remain the same, according to the 2003 Springfield Business Journal Economic Survey. In the survey, which included 207 responses from a random sample of SBJ subscribers, 33 percent of respondents indicated that they expect employment levels at their companies to increase. |ret||ret||tab|

Employment is expected to remain the same for 63 percent of the respondents, and just 4 percent indicated that they expect employment to decline. |ret||ret||tab|

It's important to note that employment is what's known as a lagging indicator, said Tom Wyrick, PhD, economics professor at Southwest Missouri State University.|ret||ret||tab|

"When the economy turns down employers don't respond quickly. They hold on, and then, finally, after they've had several bad months and don't see any end in sight, then they let the employees go put them on layoff or cut them back to four days a week, but they do that kind of as a last resort," Wyrick said. |ret||ret||tab|

That employer mentality works in the other direction, too, Wyrick said. |ret||ret||tab|

"When the economy's been in a recession and then starts to recover, employers wait a few months," he said. As conditions continue to improve, employers will still hold off on hiring for a bit, opting instead for current staff members to work overtime to meet demand, with the next step being the addition of temporary workers. |ret||ret||tab|

Rita Needham, executive director of the Southwest Area Manufacturers Association, agreed that many manufacturers who need more workers in the coming months might use temporary employment agencies.|ret||ret||tab|

A recession that started in March 2001 ended in November of that same year "and then the economy started recovering very slowly. after about 20 months or so and that would have put us at about September and what happened was that it started to become very obvious that the economy was recovering. Not just a gradual recovery, but a real obvious recovery," Wyrick said. |ret||ret||tab|

Now that the economy is showing signs of recovery, Wyrick said, employers are finding that they need more workers to meet increasing demands as consumers begin to spend more money. |ret||ret||tab|

"But that doesn't mean that they're just going to go roll the dice and hire 100 people, but they're going to be hiring people over the next few months because the writing's on the wall," Wyrick said. "The recession's over, the economy's improving, and if you don't get some more employees, you're not going to be able to keep up with your customers' sales orders." |ret||ret||tab|

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Construction|ret||ret||tab|

Construction is one industry that, based on the survey, will hold fairly steady in 2004. Of 35 survey respondents in the construction category, 13 indicated they expect to add staff in 2004. Twenty indicated that employment will stay the same and only two indicated that employment will decrease. |ret||ret||tab|

Ken Moore, branch manager for The Fagan Company in Springfield, expects he will add more employees this year. The mechanical contracting company is a union shop, affiliated with Local 178 of the Plumbers and Pipefitters.|ret||ret||tab|

"My interpretation of our market is that there are monies being freed up in order to do the type of construction we do," Moore said. Recent projects include work in the utility tunnel distribution system at SMSU and a project for City Utilities at Springfield Underground. The Fagan Company also has done several refrigeration projects for Tyson and other food companies. |ret||ret||tab|

As for finding workers, Moore said, the union supplies the company with personnel. |ret||ret||tab|

Kathy Baer, employment service director for the Springfield Contractors Association, handles SCA's job referral service.|ret||ret||tab|

"Right now, the job market's pretty slow here (for construction), because it's just that time of year. But as spring rolls around the market will pick back up again, so I do think we're going to be pretty steady that way," Baer said. |ret||ret||tab|

Carpenters and concrete workers seem to be lacking in the local market, she added. |ret||ret||tab|

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Manufacturing|ret||ret||tab|

In the manufacturing sector, four of the 14 manufacturing-related firms that replied to the SBJ Economic Survey indicated that they will be hiring. Ten respondents indicated employment levels will remain the same no manufacturing employers polled expect to decrease staffing levels in 2004. |ret||ret||tab|

"This is the third year that (manufacturers) have been going through the downturn. So they had pretty much gotten to the level that they could comfortably support their level of operations, so I don't really expect more downsizing unless it would be an isolated case," Needham said. "Most of my members that I've talked to would agree with your survey that they either plan to remain steady or that they may do some hiring this year." |ret||ret||tab|

Needham noted that SAMA does feel that there are promising indications that the economy may be turning around. |ret||ret||tab|

"We have members that are seeing increased orders for their products. That won't necessarily translate into immediate addition of employees, however, because some of them still have excess capacity in their operation, and it will take awhile for them to really need to go out and add additional employees," Needham said. |ret||ret||tab|

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Finance |ret||ret||tab|

In the accounting/financial services sector, the SBJ Economic Survey had a total of 30 respondents, representing 14 percent of responses. Half of the respondents in this sector indicated plans to add staff in 2004. |ret||ret||tab|

For 13 of the accounting/financial services respondents, employment levels will remain the same. One firm indicated that employment levels will decrease, and one wrote in that the company is "always looking" for good staff. |ret||ret||tab|

Don Gibson, president and CEO of Guaranty Bank and Guaranty Federal Banc-shares, was among respondents in the accounting/ financial services sector who indicated plans to hire in 2004.|ret||ret||tab|

"We're going to try, during the course of (2004), to open up three new freestanding branches," Gibson said|ret||ret||tab|

He added that Guaranty Bank, like most other banks, is often on the lookout for lenders to add to the bank staff. "We're all trying to grow our loan portfolios, and it's very competitive here," Gibson said. |ret||ret||tab|

For other positions, such as tellers and new accounts, Gibson said the local job market is OK in terms of finding qualified personnel. But for lenders, he said, it's more difficult. |ret||ret||tab|

Often, lenders are found at other institutions, Gibson said. |ret||ret||tab|

"That's what everybody wants to do; they want to try and steal somebody from another institution who can bring a book of business with them here in town," he said. "This community is a town where relationships are important to borrowers, and if you've been dealing with somebody for five or six years and they move to another bank, they're likely to move their business over to the other bank." |ret||ret||tab|

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Job growth|ret||ret||tab|

For data taken from March 2002 and March 2003, Springfield ranked among the top 25 cities in the United States for job growth, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. |ret||ret||tab|

According to a Dec. 5 news release from the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce's Springfield Business and Development Corporation, of 315 urban counties, Greene County ranked 21st in job growth, posting a 2.4 percent increase in jobs. That's well ahead of the national average of minus 3 percent. |ret||ret||tab|

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