Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Rueben Williams, 26, of Roanoke uses a computer during his job search at the Virginia Employment Commission. Williams lost his job after his employer went through a transition of ownership.

Marvin Page, 46, of Roanoke, worked at Volvo for several years and lost his job. He then worked for Aztec Rentals for three months before getting laid off in November. He was at the Virginia Employment Commission on Thursday applying for jobs. "Whatever," he said when asked what type of job he was seeking, "I can do it all."

As recession-stirred layoffs escalate in the Roanoke and New River valleys, residents of the region long for good news.

For the most part, this isn't it.

Historically, the Roanoke Metropolitan Statistical Area has tended to enter and emerge from past recessions more or less in step with other regions of the state and the nation.

And economists suggest the current recession promises to be rocky and long -- perhaps longer than any recession since the Great Depression.

But the economy of the Roanoke and New River valleys does have unique characteristics. Some are positive and some not.

Regional employment in two sectors -- health care and higher education -- could help deflect haymakers thrown by the current recession, according to two Virginia economists.

On the other hand, the region's continued ties to traditional manufacturing have already absorbed sharp blows.

Statewide, about 7 percent of jobs are manufacturing. In the Roanoke metro area, that number increases to 12 percent. It jumps to nearly 19 percent for the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford MSA, according to numbers cited by Christine Chmura, president and chief economist for Richmond-based Chmura Economics & Analytics.

The Roanoke MSA includes the cities of Roanoke and Salem and the counties of Botetourt, Craig, Franklin and Roanoke. The Blacksburg MSA includes the city of Radford and the counties of Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski.

"Regions that have more manufacturing firms will generally undergo a sharper [employment] contraction," Chmura said in an e-mail.

That is especially true, she said, if the company manufactures durable goods "because consumers and businesses cut back on durable goods spending during recessions."

A 2000 study by Chmura warned that the region's economy continued to "cling to decades-old manufacturing industries that are in decline because they have not kept up with the changes in national and global demand."

Since then, more companies described as high-tech manufacturers have set up in the region to replace furniture, textile and apparel factories. But many of these newer operations are suffering too.

Typically, employers resist layoffs as long as possible, because they do not want to lose a trained work force. Thus, job loss tends to lag the start of recessions -- as seems to be the current case.

This go-round, the Blacksburg MSA jumped the gun in a big, bad way. From December 2006 to March 2008, employment dropped 8.2 percent, the largest such decline among the state's metro areas, Chmura reported.

This week, the Volvo truck plant in Dublin announced plans to lay off an additional 650 workers, after furloughing 973 workers just eight months ago.

Several other manufacturing companies in the Roanoke and New River valleys have announced hundreds of layoffs in recent months. Many have been suppliers to the ailing auto industry.

Bill Mezger, chief economist for the Virginia Employment Commission, offered one bright note.

When jobs plummet in the service sector, re-employment of these workers can take longer than putting manufacturing employees back to work, he said. Many manufacturers will rehire a large percentage of their former work force once demand ramps up, he said.

"Once recovery starts, I think these people are going to be absorbed very quickly," Mezger said.

Jobs recovery might be a long ways off.

Chmura has said most economists expect the recession to continue through at least the first three quarters of 2009.

Mezger said, "Employment tends to be the last thing to turn down and the last thing to recover. I expect unemployment numbers will be pretty high for all of 2009 and going into 2010 even."

The National Bureau of Economic Research studies unemployment, gross domestic product and other measures of economic activity to pinpoint peaks and troughs in the business cycle.

Sometimes the gap separating peaks and troughs has been as narrow as a month between the deepest bottom of economic activity and the deepest unemployment mark.

Yet during the past two recessions, according to the bureau, the peak and trough of employment significantly lagged the high and low points of the recession. For instance, the decline in employment reached its trough 21 months after economic activity bottomed out in November 2001, the bureau found.

Buffers

Things could be worse.

Carilion Clinic, Lewis-Gale Medical Center and other regional hospitals and medical facilities provide employment for thousands. Carilion remains the region's largest employer, with about 12,000 workers.

"Health care continues to grow, even during this recession, which will offset some of the losses in other industries," Chmura said.

For example, Carilion's ongoing transformation from a hospital-based health care provider to a clinic-based company has helped sustain job growth, said Mezger.

And colleges and universities, both public and private, abound in the region.

"Education typically does not decline much so it will also act as a buffer," Chmura said.

Mezger shared a similar observation.

He said higher education and health care tend to be the two most recession-proof sectors.

"Even if state budget cuts hurt them, state colleges and universities have a lot of other funding sources," Mezger said.

In addition, he said, "When you have a recession, people usually go back to school."

Long haul

Nationally, the current recession, which economists say began in December 2007, might prove to be the longest since 1933. Two other recessions, one beginning in November 1973 and the other in July 1981, each stretched 16 months.

At 13 months and counting, we're almost there, said Mezger.

"It looks like it's shaping up to be a bad one," he said.

And it seems that the employment fallout has only just begun.

"The sobering news for Virginia is that we may have only just begun to see the job losses that will be coming with this recession," Chmura said.