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Private Sector Sizzles With Opportunities

By Robert Celaschi

     At first glance, Sacramento’s job landscape looks bleak. Year-to-year job growth dawdled at 1 percent in 2003, slowed to 0.6 percent for the first half of 2004 and actually lost a bit of ground in August, reports the Sacramento Regional Research Institute (SRRI) a joint venture of the Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization (SACTO) and California State University, Sacramento.            
     But within that lukewarm landscape lurk some hot spots: construction, health services, education and service businesses, such as retailers and hospitality. Those have been the region’s big job generators in recent months and are likely to keep leading the pack, says David Lyons, an analyst at the state Employment Development Department.            
     “We don’t really have any crystal ball to predict,” he cautions, “but it’s well documented that health services is hurting for workers. Skilled construction workers also are in short supply in Sacramento.”            
     Industries that serve the flood of newcomers to the region will need to do most of the hiring. The six-county Sacramento Metro Market added nearly 194,000 people from 2000 to 2004. About 75 percent of them moved in from elsewhere, primarily from the Bay Area, says the SRRI.            
     That means strong demand not only for companies that build houses and sell goods to the new inhabitants but also for professionals who can keep them healthy and manage their investments.            
     Construction jobs in the region were up by 5,684 at the end of this past summer from a year earlier, as tracked by SRRI. In that same time, the “professional and business services” category added 2,400 jobs.  

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