Same job, different employer for 122 Genco Sears workers

By Tracy Turner
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A Pittsburgh-based logistics company that ran a West Side operation for Sears has lost that contract, it announced this week.

The Genco Sears facility at 5330 Crosswind Drive will be run by Sears effective Sept. 1, and the 122 people who work there at that point will become Sears employees, a Genco Sears office manager said.

The loss of the contract prompted a filing with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services regarding the change in employment status of the workers.

tturner@dispatch.com

Columbus CIOs Forecast Increase in Fourth-Quarter Hiring

Columbus job growth lags nation's, as usual

Saturday, August 25, 2007 3:29 AM
By Amy Saunders
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

New employment data again put Columbus and Ohio where they've been all decade: behind the rest of the United States in job growth.

"And of course, the national average this quarter was nothing to write home about," said Bill LaFayette, vice president of economic analysis for the Columbus Chamber.

According to the chamber's second-quarter economic update, job growth in the Columbus area was essentially flat -- down by less than 0.1 percent, or 300 jobs.

The state also reported little change, and U.S. growth was 0.3 percent.

But the nation has been consistently outperforming Columbus and Ohio in job growth. Since 2004, U.S. employment has increased by 5.8 percent, compared with the Columbus rate of 2.8 percent and Ohio's 0.8 percent.

LaFayette predicted that, with the state's economy dragging Columbus down, regional employment will continue to grow slowly. The chamber maintains that total Columbus job growth for 2007 will be 0.5 percent, as it predicted in January.

Columbus numbers started sagging in 2001, when population growth could no longer catch up to new retail development, LaFayette said. Since then, the area has lost 22,000 jobs in retail, a nationally growing sector.

Where Columbus is "beating the pants off the national average," though, is in the transportation and utilities sector, Lafayette said.

In Columbus, a distribution hub, transportation employment has increased 5.1 percent since January. The rate of job growth nationally was 1.7 percent for the quarter.

And although construction job growth is far weaker in Columbus than nationally -- declining 5.4 percent since 2003, while the U.S. rate increased 15.4 percent -- LaFayette sees some reassurance in those numbers.

"A lot of economists at the national level are worrying about the vulnerability of the construction center," LaFayette said. "The fact that we've already had employment declines would lead me to think that we are less vulnerable than our counterparts."

asaunders@dispatch.com