Economic Basket Has a Lot of Eggs

As of Tuesday, January 31, 2012

It’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs. Or so we keep hearing, and employment opportunities surely do top the list of needs here and elsewhere.

But Pat Corso, executive director of Moore County Partners in Progress, posed a relevant and potentially disturbing question at a recent business retreat sponsored by the county Board of Commissioners: What if we create jobs but there’s nobody here who can take them?

It’s already happening to a degree, Corso told the gathering of local governmental and business leaders at the Senior Resource Center. He hears frequently from plant managers who complain that they have positions available but sometimes must turn to other counties to recruit machinists and maintenance workers and other trained specialists capable of handling them.

Nothing for Granted

If that’s so, the obvious place to turn to is Sandhills Community College. And Corso told the group that he had already talked with SCC President Dr. John Dempsey. Dempsey, in turn, indicated that he is considering convening a special summit of industries and educators to confer on how best to address the problem.

This sounds like a natural way to correct what might be a bit of a disconnect between changing employment demand and sluggishly responding supply.

John Parker, who grew up in Moore County and now runs a Raleigh-based firm called Good Works, noted that the process works both ways. Noting that his organization seeks to create jobs through a concept called creative entrepreneurship, he added: “It’s been said that I teach people how to fish, but it takes more than learning how to fish. People also need access to the pond.”

Corso also warned his colleagues against taking anything for granted — including the steady influx of retirees that forms one of the mainstays of the local economy. Retired folks don’t fill jobs, typically, but they do bring a lot of money with them, a good deal of which they spend locally.

The fact that this inflow of new residents has been so dependable for so long doesn’t mean it will always be there, Corso reminded, and local entities need to make more of a conscious effort to attract this particular segment of the population — which for obvious reasons has quite a bit of built-in turnover and needs constant replenishment.

Tourism on Rise Again

Even more ephemeral, but ultimately of central importance to the economic mix in these parts, is the constant arrival and departure of tourists and other temporary visitors. And Caleb Miles, president and CEO of the local Convention and Visitors Bureau, offered welcome news that his business is up.

Tourism, which fell off sharply when the national economy went south, picked up during 2011 for the first time in years, Miles told the group. Spending by visitors to the county, which reached a peak of $350 million in 2008, dropped below $325 million in 2009. But it was back up to $342 million and climbing in 2010.

Those figures don’t even include the major expense of lodging, factoring in only other expenditures like shopping, dining and entertainment. And it gets better. Stand by for a major uptick in all categories of spending when the back-to-back U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open come roaring through in 2014.

More like this story

wdd101st 3 months, 3 weeks ago

I am all for more employment in Moore County. The quote "if you build it they will come." I think that we could view that in two ways. If we recruit companies to come here will the trained employees be ready. Will we train people but have no jobs?

We need many more jobs not only here but all over the state and nation. We to promote the return of industrial job returning to this country, textile, etc. We are paying less for products made elsewhere but it is costing us through the economy. If the industries here were able to have relaxed regulation like other countries have then maybe they could move back her. NO, I'm not saying let them polute but don't over regulate to the point that they are run out like has been done.

DoubleHeroides 3 months, 3 weeks ago

I guess the issue we have now is that the United States has gone the way of Great Britain in history. Britain was a constitutional monarchy that had a powerhouse of an economy with all of its industrial development and ready work force. They also had relaxed labor conditions (windowless factories oftentimes employing children). Unfortunately a few costly wars and the flight of industry started to weaken the country.

Enter America, a new political system, new ideas and a new work force that trumped everything that came before it. Overtime American industry became the number one in the world. A concentration on infrastructure made them almost unstoppable. Unfortunately a few costly wars and the flight of industry started to weaken the country.

Enter China, a new political system, new ideas and a new work force that trumped everything that came before it (sort of, I'm not advocating communism, just that they are doing it differently than anyone else). It was almost a return to form with dense factories employing thousands of workers for subsistence wages, massive employee dormitories where they can sleep between their 12 – 18 hour shifts and a government that is concentrated on infrastructure and development.

I agree with you wdd101st, I’m not an expert and I’m sure there are regulations on the books that could be relaxed or removed that would enable some businesses to get buy with having to file one less report with someone somewhere but in all we are slipping our way into history. Unfortunately it is without the grace of our predecessors.

(Please do not take the above as being fatalistic to the future of the country. Britain is still a functioning country and a big player in world politics, I’m just saying that if the time comes I hope we can retire with dignity)

Nezumi 3 months, 3 weeks ago

DoubleH - actually a lot of those factories you mentioned in China have pulled a lot of the rural migrant workers out of poverty. In many cases the factory provides food, lodging, and medical care and workers end up saving a huge amount of their income which they take home and share with family back in the countryside. Of course, there are a lot of pretty awful factories as well in which workers are locked inside and endure terrible conditions which could best be described as Dickensian. Taiwanese owned factories, deserved or not, are often stereotyped as the worst offenders.