Fort Smith gets C-/D+ in analysis of job data

— A letter-graded report ranking economic vibrancy in Fort Smith during the fourth quarter gave the manufacturing town a split grade of C-/D+.

Jeff Collins, an economic consultant who prepares the data used in The Compass Report - a quarterly economic analysis of the sprawling metropolitan area, said Tuesday that the biggest issue facing Fort Smith is the changing nature of employment.

“You don’t need as many people to make things,” Collins, of StreetSmart Data Services LLC, told about 150 people gathered at the Phoenix Expo Center at Towson and Phoenix avenues.

The former University of Arkansas economist shared a podium with U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., at a luncheon organized by the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The Fort Smith metropolitan statistical area includes Sebastian, Crawford and Franklin counties in Arkansas, and Le Flore and Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma. Nearly 290,000 people live in the area, according to Census Bureaudata.

For December, the percentage of manufacturing jobs in the region’s overall work force was 24.6 percent, compared with 25.4 percent in December 2009, the report said.

The manufacturing sector in December employed 21,000 people in the Fort Smith metro area.

The sector in 2009 employed an average 21,900 people, which was down from 25,000 in 2008, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Employment growth is expected to come in the healthcare and education sector.

Jim Reser, a director with the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center in Russellville, said job growth will also come from small businesses.

“It takes a long time to create jobs in the small-business sector,” Reser said, “but they are solid, steady jobs.”

Reser said the small-business center has seen the number of clients at the Arkansas Tech University location nearly double over the past 12 months.

“We are seeing more individuals with interesting ideas and who are frustrated with the lack of job growth,” he said. And some of these people “want to take matters into theirown hands. Some of the ideas may develop into something.”

Cheryl Garner, the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of economic development, said expansions or additions of businesses such as Oxane Materials, Gerber Foods and Mitsubishi were further examples of the local job growth.

Oxane has promised to create 50 positions at a materials lab that will make supplies for the oil and gas industry. And an expansion of a Gerber baby-food plant that employs 650 people is also expected to have added 50 positions.

Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas Inc. said it will create 330 positions at a wind-turbine assembly plant being builtnearby Barling.

And the chamber has “offset the job losses by helping create jobs,” she said adding that her organization has benefited from a pool of private investment money that can be used to help in recruiting and retention efforts.

The Compass Report began in 2009 and is a graded compilation of four “current” indicators and four “leading” indicators. It uses data from the U.S. bureaus of Labor Statistics, the Census and Economic Analysis, and the Department of Commerce. The City Wire news website and The Benefit Bank sponsor the report.

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Business, Pages 24 on 02/26/2011

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