Rural Town Feels Downturn's Ripple Effect as Jobs Vanish in Northern Virginia

LURAY, Va. Steve Morgan fired up the weed whacker and flicked away a morning cigarette.

"I should be in the middle of a workday right now," he said, starting in on a patch of weeds at the base of his acre property. Later, he would mow the lawn and muse about the Chinese garden he'd like to put out back one day. "I figure I'll put up a stone wall on the back there when I can afford it, maybe make a little stone path leading to the creek, there."

Morgan is not used to this kind of morning routine. For about five years, he started his day at 2:30 a.m. preparing to drive to his warehouse job in Manassas. He traveled 60 miles each way, every day, for the job that paid $17 an hour. The job helped him buy this plot of land, his first, so he never complained about the pre-dawn drive there or the bumper-to-bumper drive back home.

But that job is gone now. It evaporated in the sputtering Northern Virginia economy. So Morgan, along with many others in Luray and surrounding Page County -- where unemployment recently was as high as 17.7 percent -- spend their days picking through the scant job listings, tending to daytime chores or hunting for day laborer work.

Morgan, 49, is one of hundreds of workers in Page (population 24,000) who for years counted on Virginia's Washington suburbs and the region's roaring economy for their livelihoods. They came for skilled-labor jobs -- many were carpenters and plumbers -- and the need for their labor seemed endless. The jobs were sometimes as far as 90 miles away and required a two-hour commute each way. But their wages were higher than most anything they would find in Page, where 60 percent of the workforce has to travel outside the county for work. Those far-flung jobs helped buy homes and property and cover college tuitions.

When times were good, these workers were a symbol of the lengths many would go to take advantage of the benefits of job-rich Northern Virginia. When factory employment in Luray and other well-paying jobs started to dry up, many looked north for work and others went south to Harrisonburg.

Now, many of these workers are an example of the ripple effect the Washington region's economic downturn is having on points south and west.

"People saw you as lucky if you had a job in Northern Virginia, because after plants closed around here, there was hardly any good work," said Florhline Painter, executive director of the Work Force Job Center in downtown Luray, about 90 miles southwest of Washington. "You've got people now who were making $45,000 a year now looking for minimum-wage jobs, and that's the only income coming in. The good jobs just aren't here."

Some Northern Virginia job counselors have reported seeing desperate laid-off workers from as far away as southwest Virginia and North Carolina moving to the region looking for jobs, only to find that work isn't as plentiful as they had expected.

Indeed, in February the number of jobs in Northern Virginia decreased by 13,600, or 1.1 percent, over last year. The biggest losses were in construction, down 10.6 percent and trade and transportation jobs, down 2.6 percent. In addition, both the Winchester and Harrisonburg areas, where many Page residents have also traditionally gone for jobs, saw job decreases of 2.8 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, during that same period.

The upshot is that the economic situation is dire for many residents of this struggling county. Requests for help from social service agencies are up. Attendance for job retraining classes is up. The same is true for classes offering training for commercial driver's licenses and the high school equivalency exam.

"Been here 30 years and never seen it like this, even when we were losing jobs back in 2002 and 2003," said Painter, who suspects that the unemployment rate was closer to 22 percent at its height over the winter.

Ricky Lucas, 49, a carpenter who worked on commercial and residential properties, had been traveling to Northern Virginia for more than 20 years. He was never out of work more than two months during that time. He had a four-hour daily commute, but he was making $26.87 an hour, and with overtime he could bring home more than $50,000 a year.

"You felt as if you'd always have a good job, because no one ever thought jobs in Northern Virginia would dry up," he said.

Now he's been unemployed 10 months and is close to exhausting his $376 a week in unemployment insurance -- and the extension granted by the government. Still, like many of those interviewed, Lucas said he has refused all government assistance except for joblessness benefits -- no food stamps, no welfare, no Medicaid for him, his wife and his teenage son at home. "I just wouldn't feel right," he said. "There are people out there who need it more than me."

Sporting black sweats and a graying five o'clock shadow one day recently, Lucas stopped at a job center looking for openings. He thought he had scored some work helping a neighbor do some work on his house, but that won't pay the bills for long, nor quell the anxiety. What frustrates him even more is that "it feels like there's work out there. But companies are just playing it safe. They don't want to hire, don't want to take a risk," he said. "There's work to be done, but I can't get to it."

As for Morgan, he waits, putting in résumés, calling companies, hoping for calls back. He's new to this unemployment routine; he lost his job in late March. But he feels as if the walls are closing in on him already.

After 20 minutes of slicing through weeds, Morgan stepped away from the whacker. He seemed lost. He headed into his work shed, an organized clutter of power saws, stray tools, fishing rods and coffee canisters filled with nails, screws and bolts. He took out a beer and looked around. "Plenty of things I could do in here, I guess," he said. But his wife was set to leave for work in a few hours, so he figured he would spend some time with her, get to the chores later.

"Well, I guess I'll go in and talk to wifey," he said. "She's not used to me being at home this time of day."