tool name
closeService sector is fast-growing
County to see 11.6 percent rise in jobs by 2014
By Jennifer Thomas
- jthomas@centredaily.comThe service industry isn’t all table waiting and shelf stocking.
Doctors, educators and advertising executives are part of the service sector, along with the waiters, department store clerks and housekeepers who most people think of when they consider “service” jobs.
The service sector accounted for 89 percent of all nonfarm jobs in Centre County in November, a figure 6 percent higher than the state average, said Joe Merlina, business and industry analyst for the state Labor Department’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis.
And the service sector is only expected to become more dominant in Centre County’s economy, with the number of service jobs projected to grow by 11.6 percent — 8,300 — by 2014, while goods-producing jobs, such as manufacturing and mining, are expected to decrease by 4.5 percent.
The highest growth is projected in the areas of health care, education and professional services.
“It is a service-driven economy,” said Scott Meckley, a business and industry analyst for the center. “The manufacturing that’s there isn’t going to grow in the near future.”
The county’s economy, anchored by its largest employer, Penn State, is a healthy one, with an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent in December. It’s among the lowest in the state, but the low unemployment and the decline of manufacturing jobs have created some challenges.
Employment challenges
Employers are struggling to find workers with specific skill sets, such as nurses or truck drivers. Workers, on the other hand, are finding that jobs might be plentiful, but those that pay enough to support a family are scarce and usually require specific skills. Career counselors say they’re seeing many highly educated people they consider to be underemployed.
Part of addressing those problems means educating people about the jobs that are available, the skills they require and where new jobs will be created within the service sector, career counselors say.
“A lot of people think of the lowest jobs. Waiters and waitresses. Housekeepers and cooks,” said Cheryl Johnson, executive director of the Private Industry Council of the Central Corridor. “There obviously are a lot of these types of jobs. In the service industry, there’s a lot of these good types of jobs as well.”
Medical professionals, lawyers and upper-level management are all jobs that are part of the service sector, along with trash collectors, secretaries and teachers. Some jobs may not pay much at the beginning but allow workers opportunities to work their way up. Others, such as plumbers or accountants, pay better but require specialized training or education, Johnson said.
Skilled, trained professionals are in demand, she said.
“We overall have a pretty strong economy here in Centre County. There’s good opportunities for people,” she said. “You don’t want all jobs that require Ph.Ds or all entry-level with minimum wage.”
But the decline in manufacturing jobs concerns Linda Calhoun, site director for State College CareerLink. She said there are fewer jobs now that pay a wage that can support a family.
“Unfortunately, what we’re seeing is that they have to go to two or three service jobs to get the same wage,” Calhoun said.
A self-sufficiency wage, according to the report “Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania,” produced by PathWays PA in 2006, is defined as the cost of meeting a family’s basic needs without assistance. In Centre County, the report said a family comprising one parent and one preschool child would need an income of $35,445 to be self-sufficient.
“With the declining manufacturing in State College, we need to have some resource that has a sustaining wage,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun said she’s finding that highly educated employees — sometimes those with master’s degrees — are sometimes unable to find work because they are overqualified for many of the service jobs advertised.
Employers seeking to fill entry-level or unskilled jobs are reluctant to hire these workers for fear they will leave as soon as something better comes along, she said.
Few professional jobs are listed with CareerLink, but those are what most people come looking for, Calhoun said.
Employees displaced by the loss of manufacturing jobs at companies such as Corning-Asahi and Murata and more recently at Bolton (formerly Cerro Metal Products) have shown the need for greater career education, Johnson said.
There needs to be greater awareness, for example, that hospitals not only need doctors and nurses, but human resource administrators, accountants, marketing personnel, technicians and other such workers, she said.
With awareness, potential employees can pursue avenues to obtain new skills and education to fill those positions.
“They don’t know the many opportunities and possibilities they have for careers,” Johnson said.
Growth of service jobs
The top 10 areas of job growth in Centre County are expected to include education (elementary and secondary schools and colleges), nursing homes, doctors’ offices, outpatient care centers, restaurants, computer-related services, and management, professional and technical consulting services, according to the Center for Workforce Information and Analysis.
Of the 830 jobs the state projects will be created annually between now and 2014, 657 will be in those top 10 industries.
For example, health care, an industry sector with the greatest demand across the state, will offer competitive wages and numerous vacancies as the field grows or people seek new employment.
“You’re talking about high-wage, sustaining jobs,” Meckley said.
Data from the Central Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board show that the health care sector accounted for 6,309 jobs, or about 10 percent of the county’s work force in 2005. Annual average wages were more than $37,700, with the top three sources of jobs being general medical and surgical hospitals, physicians’ offices and outpatient care centers.
The health care and social assistance sector, such as doctors, nurses, retirement homes and home health-care aides, is expected to see the fastest growth at 23.1 percent, or about 150 jobs annually in the county.
But the highest volume of new jobs in Centre County will be in educational services, led by jobs in colleges and universities, according to state projections. A total of 4,220 jobs are expected to be created in this area by 2014, an average of 422 jobs a year.
Education accounted for 31.75 percent of county jobs, the investment board reported, an average annual wage of $43,750 for jobs at colleges, elementary and secondary schools and engineering services.
And there likely will be high-volume change, mainly from replacing employees who leave, in jobs such as waitresses, secretaries and janitors.
“These do tend to be the lower-paying, higher-turnover jobs,” Meckley said.
Johnson said starting education early about what jobs are available locally may help. The jobs that are advertised in newspapers tend to be lower-paying entry-level jobs, and people planning their future need to know the market has more than that to offer, she said.
“What we’re trying to do is make the box bigger, make them aware of the opportunities that are out there,” she said.
Jennifer Thomas can be reached at 231-4638.
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