Field of, Ah, Er…?

With the past, current and projected future growth of the Cranberry Township area north of Pittsburgh, Dick’s Sporting Goods, with corporate headquarters only a half-hour drive away and over 250 stores nationwide, has agreed to pay $2.2 million dollars over the next 10 years for the naming rights to a new 150 acre outdoor sports complex located in Cranberry adjacent to the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76). The complex will include 3 full size football fields, 5 baseball fields and additional fields for soccer and lacrosse.

Westinghouse announced last year it will build a new corporate headquarters in Cranberry, bringing over 3,000 jobs with it. This is in addition to Cranberry already being one of the fastest growing areas in the state of Pennsylvania due to it’s location at the intersection of I-76, I-79, state Routes 19 and 228 and 20 minute access to downtown Pittsburgh.

If a multi-million dollar traffic improvement program can be approved in the next year or two, Simon Properties, owner of three major malls in the Pittsburgh area, is planning an additional 900,000 square foot retail and office complex almost directly across the road from Westinghouse, bringing a projected 1,000 to 1,500 additional jobs to the area.

As reported in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Dick's Sporting Goods Inc., based in Findlay, reached an agreement with Cranberry officials to pay $2.2 million over the next 10 years for the naming rights to the proposed Graham Park along Rochester Road, Cranberry supervisor John Skorupan said Tuesday. "It's a great initiative," Skorupan said, adding that the township is growing so fast that it needs the new park. The township hopes to begin building the park this spring and have the three football fields ready for the fall season, with baseball and soccer fields available in the spring of 2009. The Cranberry board of supervisors has scheduled a special meeting Thursday to approve the agreement, Skorupan said.

Now the difficult part is deciding on the name…Field of Ah, Er…

Monster Employment Index Names Pittsburgh One of Top Four Local Markets for Online Job Growth in 2007

Pittsburgh, along with Seattle, St. Louis and Houston were the Monster Local Job Index’s highest growth markets for 2007 in online job postings. Although down from the hot November level, December’s reading was still up 25 points from December of 2006.

"Approximately half of the Index’s decline in December 2007 from November can be attributed to seasonality as employers naturally scale back their hiring activities during the final month of the year,” said Steve Pogorzelski, Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Customer Development at Monster Worldwide. “The Index has consistently shown a seasonal slowdown every December since its inception, which is usually followed by a sizable rebound in the months that immediately follow.

For a complete industry by industry run down for Pittsburgh, click here.

Click on the chart to enlarge.

After a Decade of Bad News Regarding Pittsburgh Area Manufacturing Jobs, Medrad, Inc. Offers Up 500 New Jobs over the Next Five Years

At the ribbon cutting ceremony for Medrad’s new manufacturing facility located on the former site of a U.S. Steel sintering plant in Victory Road Business Park, a state Keystone Opportunity Zone, which grants job-creating companies lower business taxes, located in Clinton Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, Governor Ed Rendell Said “Medrad will create at least 500 jobs at its new $44.7 million, 120,000-square-foot plant, The plant's 20-acre site is in the Victory Road Business Park which will produce disposable syringes and specialty tubing used in medical imaging procedures. This is an exciting day and an important win for the commonwealth. The company conducted a worldwide search for a location for this plant and the 500 skilled manufacturing jobs it will generate. By choosing Pennsylvania, MEDRAD is sending an important message about the strength of our economy and the quality of our workforce”.

In June 2006, Governor Rendell announced a $4.4 million state investment package to help MEDRAD build its new disposables plant on the former 20-acre U.S. Steel site in the Victory Road Business Park in Clinton Township.

Medrad President and CEO John Friel said “The Saxonburg facility went from groundbreaking to start-up in just 10 months and is critical to meeting the demand for imaging procedures that enable earlier, more accurate, diagnosis and improved treatment. It provides us with needed additional plant capacity in the short term and its phased growth design gives us the capacity to add production lines in the future".

Victory Road Business Park is also home to an Aldi Foods distribution center, R.A.M. Transit Lines, an over the road trucking firm and Castcon Stone, a wholly woman owned precast concrete manufacturer.

MEDRAD is an affiliate of

Bayer AG.

Pittsburgh’s November Jobless Rate Down to 4.2%

According to the Pennsylvania State Department of Labor and Industry the 7 county Pittsburgh Metro Area created a seasonally adjusted 1,100 new jobs in November. However, over 5,000 fewer people were looking for them, as the unemployment rate dropped from 4.6% to 4.2% which was down from 4.7% one year ago. Over the past year the Pittsburgh Metro job count has increased by 3,000 which translates into a .25% (that’s a ¼ of a point) increase year over year.

Strength in the Pittsburgh area came from the service sector including retail, education and health services, although hospitality saw another overall decrease. The drop in the number of people looking for employment was unexplained in the latest report. Historically it has meant fewer people thought a job search would pay off and partially due to a continued outflow of people living in the metro.

Out of the seven counties included in these figures, Allegheny and Butler counties each came in with the best individual rates seasonally adjusted at 3.9% for Butler and 4.0% for Allegheny. Other individual rates include Fayette County at 5.4% (down a full 1.1% from a year ago), Armstrong County at 4.4% (down from 5.4% 1 year ago), Beaver County at 4.4% with Washington and Westmorland Counties both coming in at 4.3%.

With housing prices remaining relatively stable in our area along with billions of dollars in new construction projects slated for 2008 and beyond, this upcoming year should still be one of continued overall job growth although it remains to be seen whether the pace of growth can pick up from an anemic ¼% over this past year.

Pittsburgh Construction Job Prospects for 2008 Near Best in USA

On a subject that we have written about numerous times over the past few months, an excellent article appeared over the past weekend by Joe Grata of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette summarizing many of the large commercial/industrial projects currently underway or slated for a 2008 start. The jobs provided by these projects, as well as the number of current workers slated for retirement over the next 5 years means for the first time in a decade, Pittsburgh may have to import workers from other areas of the country.

Add to this the two billion plus dollars in road construction to be spent in southwest Pennsylvania and the opportunity for those seeking jobs in this area will be unmatched anywhere around the United States.

We will watch with interest what affect this has on the overall job numbers in the Pittsburgh Metro. Although 2007 has been the best year for job seekers since 2001, actual job growth has been anemic compared to both Pennsylvania as a whole and the country.

Pittsburgh Employment Picture Still Good For 1st Quarter 2008

According to the quarterly Manpower Survey on hiring manager’s recruitment expectations, Pittsburgh is about even with last year, with 23% of hiring managers expecting to increase staff levels, While 15% expect to decrease. One year ago the numbers were 23% and 13%.
However, this reflects a large decrease in hiring plans from the 4th quarter survey where 36% expected to increase staff.

How have the surveys actually reflected reality? This has varied quite a bit but generally has proven useful in predicting overall increases or decreases in activity.

We at The Employment Guide are seeing recruitment levels in the hourly arena slightly slower than last year for fourth quarter but still remaining historically strong.

What will Pittsburgh’s New Casino Mean to Job Seekers?

With the groundbreaking for Pittsburgh’s new Casino slated for next Tuesday December 11th there has been a lot of talk about how many jobs the Casino will bring to Pittsburgh.

Early estimates have hovered around 1,000 new jobs for what eventually will be a 5,000 slot facility. Also part of the Majestic Star Casino will be five restaurants, four bars, outdoor terraces and an amphitheater. .

Although these jobs will be one of the best things to hit Pittsburgh in years, the overall net effect needs to be seen. The Casino will attract many out of town visitors to our area and with them millions of dollars. However, these visitors will have a tendency to remain at the Casino and not travel to surrounding businesses and restaurants (see Atlantic City).

The Casino will also attract many local residents. With only so many “discretionary dollars” to go around, the local patrons will spend these dollars at the Casino instead of other area businesses and restaurants. What this will do to the levels of employment outside the Casino is open to debate. You can be sure that it will have a negative effect causing the net increase in jobs to be somewhat less than 1,000. How much less only time will tell.