Industry slowdown not new in Va.

MARTINSVILLE — Mary Greer says she worked at the same Martinsville factory for 42 years, but after being laid off in August, she doesn’t believe she’ll ever find a job in this city again.

“There’s really no work around here,” the 61-year-old said recently as she left the Virginia Employment Commission’s Martinsville office. “I call [businesses] two times a week, and they all say the same thing, ‘We’re not hiring.’ ”

Greer’s plight — she survives on temporary unemployment aid and her late husband’s Social Security benefits — illustrates the conditions for many here in Martinsville, which as of December had the state’s highest jobless rate, 15.4 percent. Nationwide, the unemployment rate is 7.6 percent.

While Martinsville’s struggles are far more severe, Waynesboro’s current predicament – the city has been hit hard by manufacturing layoffs at Invista and elsewhere – reflects that of the rugged town in the state’s deep south. Waynesboro’s unemployment rate has climbed to a 15-year high of 7.9 percent.

Once a powerhouse of Virginia’s booming textile and furniture industries, Martinsville is mired in hard times, more than anywhere in the state. The big plants started shutting or leaving more than a decade ago as federal trade policies changed, and more factories have closed in the past two years. 

Now, as the national recession prompts consumers to cut spending, Martinsville employees thrown out of work by the exodus of manufacturers find themselves unable to get jobs at the remaining companies, which are hunkering down to ride out the economic downturn.

People in Waynesboro know the feeling. Many locals were among the hundreds of people who stood in line waiting in the cold for hours last week at the Best Western to apply for more than 100 entry-level production jobs at Hershey’s in Stuarts Draft

Martinsville estimated it would receive $1.7 million in business-license revenue by the end of fiscal 2009. But with little more than five months left in the year, it has received just $100,000, city spokesman Scott Coleman said. The low number suggests that businesses in Martinsville, as in other parts of the state, are putting off paying their fees for as long as possible as they navigate choppy economic waters.

City Manager Clarence Monday summed it up: “We need help.”

The city has found itself particularly vulnerable to its former reliance on manufacturing jobs, and the numbers suggest that is still a problem: Fully 32 percent of its labor force remains in the manufacturing field, said Mark Heath, president and CEO of the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp. Nationwide, about 10 percent of the labor force is in manufacturing, according to federal statistics.

About 20 percent of Waynesboro’s labor force is in manufacturing, just about even with retail, but recent layoff announcements at Invista, Mohawk Industries and elsewhere have put a large dent in the city’s manufacturing base.

Like Waynesboro, Martinsville once relied heavily on textiles. The town’s base also included furniture plants. Housing’s fall particularly stung Invista, stripping demand for fibers produced by the company for carpet. Housing also has hurt the furniture market.

The result is the jobs textile and furniture plants once provided are vanishing or gone. In Martinsville there has been another effect: Eager to start earning a paycheck at one of the big plants, many residents dropped out of school. Today, 31.5 percent of Martinsville residents 25 or older do not have a high school diploma, compared with 18.5 percent statewide, according to census figures. That ratio is 22.1 percent in Waynesboro.

With the manufacturing jobs gone or going, those who can find work are taking low-paying positions, Monday said.

“A large percentage of our work force is underemployed,” he said. “They’ve had to accept jobs that don’t have the same salary.”

In Martinsville, 35.4 percent of workers make less than $25,000 a year, compared with 29.1 percent in Waynesboro and 24.6 percent statewide.

Plant closures over the past two years have made matters worse in Martinsville. American of Martinsville, the furniture company where Greer worked, let go 400 workers last summer. The Stanley Furniture Co. laid off 250 employees in October 2007, and the Hooker Furniture Co. closed earlier that year, leaving 277 workers unemployed.

For several years, Martinsville’s unemployment rate has been steadily climbing. In December, it reached the highest level since December 1999, when it hit 19.3 percent after the city’s Tultex textile plant closed, said Bill Mezger, senior economist for the state employment commission. In surrounding Henry County, the rate stood at 11 percent in December, the last month the rate was measured.

There is some good news. In October, defense contractor SPARTA announced it would open a support center in Martinsville that would employ up to 25 people. And RTI International Metals announced that a $100 million plant to open in 2010 would hire 150 workers.

For now, though, things are grim in Martinsville, and help doesn’t look like it’s arriving anytime soon.

“I feel really bad for these young kids who are just starting out,” Greer said. “I tell them, ‘Don’t go into manufacturing.’ ”