Welcome To 1995

There has been a lot of press coverage lately about how stagnant Pittsburgh’s job growth has been over the past 5 or 6 years. In fact, job growth from 2001 to 2006 has been almost nonexistent. Worse yet, it has been announced that except for New Orleans, devastated by hurricanes two years ago, Pittsburgh has lost more population than any other major metropolitan area since 2000. This is due to many reasons, not the least of which was the downsizing of U.S. Air, who eliminated almost 10,000 jobs in our area.

This followed one of the biggest 5 year periods of job growth over the past 50 years. 1995 until 2000 saw the creation of 87,000 jobs and much optimism that Pittsburgh was finally turning the corner from the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980’s.

Welcome to 1995. It is probable that the Pittsburgh area, when reports come in, is again creating jobs at a pace rivaling that of the mid to late 90’s. The prospects for this to be long term are excellent. With construction projects already underway or in the planning stages, Westinghouse’s decision to remain in southwest PA and even create an additional 1,000 jobs and the business climate in general (survey’s indicate planned staff expansions at a high percentage of area businesses) we will finally be able to join a large part of the rest of the country in offering opportunity not just for high tech jobs, but for hourly support jobs as well. We at the Employment Guide are today celebrating our 9th anniversary (our first issue was published April 24th, 1998) and are seeing the implications of a tightening job market. Where a simple sign in the window had been enough to fill most hourly staffing problems in the past, this is not working anymore. Employers are starting to scramble to find new ways to recruit hourly workers. Staffing firms are enjoying their best year since 2001.

Now it is time to stop dwelling on the past and start planning for the future. We are already seeing the early efforts in this area from local government. New hourly job creation will help attract immigrants to our area adding strength to our workforce. Programs to retrain workers are being implemented and made available to those who seek them out. The next five years should prove prosperous for our area in general and offers an opportunity we have not seen in a long time.