New jobs, lost jobs

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.