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Charlottesville employment surpasses pre-recession levels

University major public employer in Charlottesville area

After three years of growth, job levels in the Charlottesville region are now higher than they were before the 2008 recession. At 114,911 total jobs, the expansion marks a 12.7 percent growth since 2003.

In the past 10 years, the region has seen considerable growth across a number of sectors, with employment contractions occurring only between 2007 and 2009. This trend is consistent with state and national data, showing sharp declines followed by a gradual recovery.

Economics Prof. Toshihiko Mukoyama said the labor market is now improving after taking a hard hit during the recession.

“Overall, the labor demand has been improving over the last several years,” Mukoyama said. “The U.S. economy was hit by a big negative shock during 2007-08, largely coming from housing and finance-related sectors, but it has been recovering, although slowly, since then.”

Considering the past 10 years on the whole, expansion within Charlottesville’s private sector has outpaced growth within the public sector. The region has added 9,472 private jobs and 3,533 public jobs.

Private sector growth has largely concentrated in leisure and hospitality, which has grown 29.8 percent; professional and business services, which has grown 35.5 percent; natural resources and mining, which has grown 30.9 percent; and educational and health services industries, which has grown 36.9 percent.

The public sector has relied heavily on the University for job growth.

According to the Chamber’s jobs report, through a 10-year period the University “serves as the leading location of the region’s job growth with 7,923 net added jobs,” marking a 25.6 percent increase. The City of Charlottesville has added only 1,189 public jobs, a 3.4 percent increase.

This 10-year outlook masks the effects of recent budget cuts, however, which have actually caused the University to reduce total employment in recent years. Between 2012 and 2013, University net employment fell 2.5 percent.

Susan Carkeek, University vice president and chief human resource officer, said while Medical Center hires are increasing, budget cuts have led to lower employment elsewhere throughout the University.

“Because the majority of our budget is people, hiring for the Academic Division has been down as a direct result,” Carkeek said. “What increases we have seen in hiring have been in the Medical Center.”

Though the academic sector is the only University division with negative overall job growth — in contrast to the Medical Center and the College at Wise — it has fallen steeply enough to offset growth in these other areas.

The 1.2 percent job growth at the Medical Center between 2012-13 and a 21.9 percent increase at the College at Wise, which is excluded in calculating Charlottesville labor expansion, has not been enough to keep up overall University employment figures in recent years.

Speaking overall and not to the recent decline in University employment, Joseph Raichel, Charlottesville bank president of Wells Fargo and Chamber of Commerce vice chairman, said in a press release he was happy with the overall positive growth in Charlottesville jobs.

"I am very pleased that our region's employers have added more than 1,392 jobs over the last year,” Raichel said. “While there have been shifts within the various industry sectors, the net job gain is critically important and we remain hopeful this upward trend will continue.”

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