Prince William County has been ranked #8 in the nation in  job growth.  It falls behind Loudoun County which is ranked #1 and mostly Texas communities.  It supposedly has a job growth of 48.6%.  My question is, where are the jobs and do  those jobs support a livable wage in this county?

From CNN.com

Prince William County takes the crown when it comes to offering enticing perks to businesses. Expedited permits for companies in “targeted” industries that promise high-paying jobs and capital investment is just one of the ways it rolls out the red carpet.

Also behind the job boom: proximity to the D.C. Beltway, a smart workforce and competitive tax rates. Some 770 new jobs were announced last year, a nearly 14% increase from the previous year.

The jewel of Prince William County is Innovation Technology Park, a 1,600-acre corporate district whose tenants include the FBI, Comcast and George Mason University’s Life Sciences Campus. One of the newest additions is Vector Security, which last year announced it was moving into the park and bringing 130 new jobs with it.

The new jewel of Prince William County is supposedly Innovation Technology Park.  I sure hope Prince William isn’t claiming credit for the FBI.  Those are all government jobs out there at Boulder City.  There isn’t even that much out there.  What kind of jobs is Comcast creating?  I just don’t see the high tech jobs in this area.  Where are the offices?  Where are people?  I don’t think you see them because I don’t think they exist.

There is lot of retail around here and a lot of food service industry.  Those workers aren’t  drawing salaries in the higher pay brackets.

What was the information based on?  Are we cooking the books on our attributes?  It sure sounds like it.

Upon careful inspection, I discoverd that the dates are from 2000-2011.  Is the construction business part of this count?  If so, it is a dubious award.

13 Thoughts to “Eat your heart out Silver Lake, there’s a new jewel in town (and it ain’t you)”

  1. Need to Know

    Moon, I’ve already responded on the CNN/Money website. PWCSkeptic and Need to Know are one and the same. My comment here for all to see:

    CNN needs to go back to the drawing board on these rankings. I live in Prince William County, VA and ranking this place #8 in jobs is absurd. Jobs have been growing more slowly than population for more than a decade. The jobs being created are mostly low-wage service jobs in retail, hospitality and other low-skill areas. The economy here serves a commuter population. Two-thirds of residents live here and work in Loudoun, Fairfax, DC or elsewhere that they can find the high-wage jobs that mostly don’t exist in Prince William County. Prince William County is nothing but a low-wage bedroom community, creating boatloads of low-wage service jobs for that population. The Innovation business park has been mostly a vast empty field for 20 years. One problem CNN creates for us here locally is to give the local politicians who are in bed with the residential developers who fund their campaigns sham accomplishments to sucker the voters. I generally like CNN’s coverage and analysis of economic and business news, but these rankings are way off the mark.

  2. Need to Know

    Whoever wrote this piece for CNN must have looked only at raw numbers and taken dictation from Peacor or Jason Grant. I’m very disappointed in their “reporting.”

    While the job growth number is probaby correct, it does not tell the whole story of most PWC residents having to commute out of the County to find good jobs. Come to PWC if you want to work at WalMart, McDonald’s, or get a low-paying, mostly unskilled job at one of the medical facilities. That’s the sort of work we’re creating. Most of Innovation has sat idle for two decades. It’s most prominent feature is the Eli Lilly steel skeleton that has been an eyesore for years.

  3. Need to Know

    Construction employment has been flat over the past decade. We’ve actually LOST jobs in IT and manufacturing.

  4. Elena

    Great Analysis NTK!

  5. Need to Know

    Here are some more interesting facts I just got from the Virginia Employment Commission’s web site. Data are as of today.

    Number of unemployed people per job opening in PWC is 1.98 as opposed to 1.04 statewide. We have nearly twice as many unemployed people per job opening as the state average.

    Percentage of job openings in PWC requiring only a high school diploma or less education is 41.66%. The number statewide is 35.01%. Jobs available in PWC require, on average, lower levels of skill and education than do jobs statewide.

    In PWC, the average hourly wage, weekly wage and annual wage of job openings are, respectively, $21.15, $846 and $43,992. The same figures statewide are $25.10, $1,004 and $52,208. These are large differences showing that whether measuring hourly, weekly, or annually, jobs in PWC pay far less than do those on average statewide.

    Great job PWC BOCS! With Stone Haven and other residential projects coming up you’ll have ample opportunities to continue PWC’s growth as a bedroom community with jobs and wages subpar to those statewide.

    Great job CNN/Money! Keep up the tradition of shallow reporting with no research into the underlying facts of a story.

  6. Need to Know

    @Elena

    Thank you, Elena.

  7. Lyssa

    Good write up. Since I moved here in 1980 The talk has been the same. PWC had a lot of potential inthe useless hands of people who have run unopposed for decades. We have a billion dollars in annual taxes managed by amateurs.

  8. Ray Beverage

    One of the questions I always ask is: Just what is a “high paying” job? Always here that tossed around by the local politicos, but nobody gives a straight answer. There is one, however….

    Back in September 2010, the PWC “Final Report of the Economic Development Task Force” was released for comment. On Page 2, under the Economic Development/Transportation Strategic Goal” it read – “The County will create a community that will attract quality businesses that bring high-paying jobs…”

    You have to drill down to Page 17 under the Action Strategy 5: Small Business to find any number to latch onto for “high paying job”. It states – “Since 2000, the cumulative number of high-wage quality jobs brought into the County is 10,442 with an average payroll of approximately $600,000,000.”

    If you divide the payroll by the cumulative “high-wage jobs”, this gives an average of $54,570. The PWC Median Income at that time was $88,724 (BUT note that income average is NOT indicating all jobs are in PWC…as known by all, that just means income of the residents, not the average income of all jobs solely in PWC).

    Then taking the VA Employment Commission Profile of May 2010, the average annual salary for all PWC-only Occupations/Industries was $41,028. So a “high-paying job” by definition comes out to about 24% above the average of all PWC industries.

    Now the kicker, per the Federal Bureau of Labor, a “livable wage” for a single person in Northern Virginia is considered to be around $12 an hour, making it just shy of $25,000 a year. “Livable wage” begin defined as being able to afford rent and transportation and meals. This wage is about half of what PWC labels as “High-wage” job…and $25,000 ain’t going very far in the current economy.

    1. Let’s make up our own standards then. How about a high enough salary to buy an average price home in Prince William County on a single salary or with the help of a spouse’s salary and still be able to put food on the table. A person making $50 with kids is going to struggle more than a single person who only has to worry about themselves.

      You are right though Ray. The rhetoric makes about as much sense as that great political direct: Stop Spending.

  9. Need to Know

    @Ray Beverage

    One benchmark is to have jobs in PWC that pay on average at least as much those statewide.

    PWC is one of the wealthiest communities in the nations, but that wealth comes from jobs and businesses elsewhere. Yet, we can’t generate jobs that on average pay even the state average.

    Keep in mind that the state average includes some of the poorest communities in the nation. Prince William should at least be helping to pull the statewide average up, rather than pull it down as it has been doing.

    This pattern will not change until the BOCS stops approving every residential development that comes our way. That will only change when we have a BOCS does not sell out to developers in exchange for funding their campaigns. That means, most likely, that nothing will change until we replace most of the supervisors.

  10. Ray Beverage

    @Need to Know

    Agreed. Since CNN mentions Innovation Park, let’s wander (carefully) across the highway to the City of Manassas side and the Airport. I have a LOT of respect for the 7 employees that run that operation for the City. It has gone from being in the red, to being #4 in Virginia in terms of General Aviation (National, Dulles and Norfolk are 1, 2 & 3). The City Council looks to the Gateway Area (basically from DMV building down to the Airport) as the site to bring in the quality jobs paying the decent wages. Goal is to try and have companies which match both aviation (of various categories) or technology…and those companies would base here because of the airport. No jumping to just develop – the City is waiting out the recesssion and the markets as eventually it will all play out.

  11. @Need to Know Interesting. Will go to look for a link to these stats; would you have the link(s) handy?

  12. Need to Know

    @Bill G.

    Bill – here you go. Have fun. You can get historical data, or do comparisons of PWC with the state of other counties, and lots more at this site.

    http://www.vawc.virginia.gov/vosnet/menulandingpage.aspx

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