By DON FENLEY

The Tri-Cities added 400 jobs last month, according to the seasonally adjusted portion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly report. The unadjusted churn shows a loss of 800 jobs. Neither is the big picture. There’s a more complicated picture when you look at what kind of jobs are growing and what they pay because job counts and economic impact don’t always move in the same direction.

The region supported roughly 214,000 to 217,000 nonadjusted, nonfarm payroll jobs from January through April this year. That’s a net gain of about 3,300 positions, and much of it is driven by spring hiring pulling workers back into restaurants, hotels, and construction sites. Construction held its gains through April. Professional and Business Services grew steadily, without a single month of reversal, which is the clean, unbroken climb that suggests genuine business expansion rather than seasonal churn.

But a strong regional job market would show high-wage sectors leading the growth while anchor employers are stable or expanding. Right now, one of those conditions is being met.

The bottom line is sectors adding the most jobs pay the least. The sectors that anchor household income are holding on, but not growing. The one sector posting sustained losses pays above the average wage.

The Growth Came From the Bottom

So far this year, the strongest private-sector job gain belongs to Leisure and Hospitality, which added 800 jobs between January and April. That’s good news for restaurant and hotel operators, and it reflects the seasonal pattern. What it doesn’t do is move the economic needle the way the headline number implies.

Leisure and Hospitality workers in the Johnson City metro average about $28,950 a year. In the Kingsport-Bristol metro, it’s $27,560. Those figures sit roughly $22,000 to $24,000 below what the average worker across all occupations earns in each market.

Professional and Business Services – the sector that includes law firms, accounting offices, consulting operations, and business management – has added 500 jobs since the first of they ear. That’s fewer jobs. But those workers average $70,860 a year in Johnson City and $74,310 in Kingsport-Bristol. The 500 Professional and Business Services jobs created more new wage income for the regional economy than the 800 Leisure and Hospitality jobs did.

The Sectors That Hold the Region Together

Two supersectors function as the economic floor of the Tri-Cities, and neither one is generating much growth.

Private Education and Health Services is the region’s largest private employer, with roughly 35,000 jobs. Government employment is comparable in size. Together they account for about  70,000 jobs that pay near or above the regional average wage. The combined annual payroll is about  $3.3 billion to $3.5 billion. When those sectors are stable, the regional economy is stable. When they slip, the effects ripple.

Both are showing early signs of stress. Private Education and Health Services slipped slightly in April after holding flat for three months. It’s a single data point, but in a sector this large, even a modest decline carries disproportionate weight. Government employment surged by 1,500 jobs in February, accounting for the largest raw gain of any sector in the period. Much of that spike, however, reflects school-year staffing cycles and public employment calendars rather than permanent new hiring.

A Warning Sign in Transportation

One sector posted losses and hasn’t recovered.

Transportation and Utilities shed 300 jobs between January and February and stayed there through April. That matters for two reasons. First, transportation employment is a useful early indicator of supply chain and distribution activity. Second, transportation workers in both metros earn above the regional average wage, roughly $44,000 to $46,000 a year. Those 300 lost jobs represent an estimated $13.5 million in annualized wages pulled out of the regional economy.

Two Metros, Two Economic Identities

The Tri-Cities function as a single regional labor market in many respects, but the Johnson City and Kingsport-Bristol metros have distinct economic profiles that show up clearly in the wage data.

Kingsport-Bristol carries a wage premium in Manufacturing and Professional and Business Services. The Manufacturing advantage –  $54,390 annually versus $52,830 in Johnson City – almost certainly reflects Eastman Chemical’s influence on the Kingsport labor market.

Johnson City holds the edge in Private Education and Health Services, where workers average $48,780 annually compared to $45,970 in Kingsport-Bristol. That premium reflects the concentration of ETSU and Ballad Health in Johnson City. Because Private Ed and Health is the largest private-sector employer in the region, Johnson City’s wage advantage in that anchor sector translates into a structural economic benefit that compounds.

The aggregate wage gap between the two metros – $52,600 in Johnson City versus $50,230 in Kingsport-Bristol – understates the actual differences. Each metro’s wage profile reflects its dominant institutions.

Categories: LABOR MARKET