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Health care leads regional job growth projections(Paducah Sun, The (KY) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 1--The best job opportunities for 2009 are in health care and other services because the population is rapidly aging, said Ron Crouch, director of the Kentucky State Data Center. Western Kentucky has the oldest population statewide, so those service demands are already apparent, he said. "Why are we talking about manufacturing cars when we need to be talking about manufacturing medical devices for an aging population?" The Southeast is the hub of growth because of mild climate, affordable housing, good roads and other factors that attract business, said Crouch, who crunches Census Bureau data. "Ninety percent of all the growth now in the U.S. is in the Southeast." Census data show only three sectors -- government; education and health; and trade, transportation and utilities -- with job gains during the past year in the Federal Reserve's Louisville Zone, including western Kentucky. All had modest increases of 2.7 percent or less. Manufacturing showed the steepest decline with a 6.8 percent job loss. The leading growth sectors from 2007 to 2012 are biomedical-biotechnical (15 percent gain with 1,153 jobs) and transportation-logistics (11 percent gain with 616 jobs) in a nine-county area consisting of the Jackson Purchase and Massac County, Ill. The Tennessee Valley Authority modeled those projections for the Purchase Area Regional Industrial Park in north Graves County. Park President Bill Beasley said the $1.2 billion Hemlock Semiconductor plant planned for Clarksville, Tenn., could help draw support industry into western Kentucky. The Hemlock plant is expected to require about 1,000 construction workers for up to seven years, and create between 500 and 800 jobs at the plant. Construction is expected to start this year in Clarksville's 1,215-acre TVA-certified industrial megasite. Beasley said he's confident the 2,400-acre Purchase park is now large enough to qualify as a megasite, which would afford greater visibility and credibility in recruiting. Health care Much of the scheduled construction in the region in 2009 is in new and expanded hospitals, which are heavy employers. The Kentucky Workforce Development Cabinet projects a 26.5 percent increase in health care support jobs through 2014. Lourdes will hold a grand opening Feb. 8 for its $6 million Ray and Kay Eckstein Cardiovascular Institute. The wing has 30,000 square feet of new and renovated space, with another $1.9 million earmarked for new equipment this year. The $25 million Marshall County Hospital is slated to open in early 2009 on 31 acres just south of Symsonia Road off the Purchase Parkway at Benton. A $5 million emergency room expansion at Jackson Purchase Medical Center is targeted for opening early this year in Mayfield. The 18,000-square-foot expansion will double the number of rooms from seven to 14. Also, a Veterans Affairs medical clinic is slated to open in early 2009 at 100 Wyatt Crossing on Ky. 121 South. The clinic will house three panels of medical staff to serve 4,800 veterans. A $61 million expansion of Murray-Calloway County Hospital is on pace for completion in 2010. The hospital will more than double in size and compete as a regional medical center when the two-year project is completed, CEO Keith Bailey said. Plans call for the $31 million Caldwell County Hospital to open in November at 100 Medical Center Drive in Princeton. Transportation Development group Vieste proposes building a $1.06 billion products and materials distribution center using river, rail, highway and airport transportation along the Metropolis, Ill., riverfront that in advanced phases could become the region's largest employer. The first phase would take five years, creating 800 to 1,000 jobs both in construction and center operations. The second phase, beyond 10 years, would expand the project from 200 to as many as 800 acres and create more than 2,000 permanent and construction jobs, according to the company. In Paducah, barge firm AEP River Operations will build a 24,000-square-foot operations center on Marine Way. Employment is projected to grow from 13 to 53 by the time the building opens in spring 2010. The center will be the hub for 700 AEP workers along the rivers. FedEx Ground's new $4 million satellite distribution center off John Puryear Drive is expected to produce 50 new jobs within two to three years and 100 jobs within five years, McCracken County Judge-Executive Van Newberry said. Pepsi MidAmerica continues to expand after buying Paducah's Lambert Vending and other regional food-distribution firms. Pepsi is erecting two buildings -- one next to the Paducah center and the other at Pepsi operations on U.S. 641 between Draffenville and Benton -- to house the full-line vending business, President Lee Crisp said. The firm opened a $2 million Kentucky-Tennessee operations hub in 2007 in the Paducah Information Age Park. Public works Local governments and business groups regionally have assembled wish lists for President-elect Barack Obama's Obama's $675 billion to $775 billion economic stimulus package. "We had 109 projects from eight counties, totaling a little over $933 million," said Brad Davis of the Purchase Area Development District office in Mayfield. The list includes roads and bridges, water and sewer systems, industrial park projects, and new city halls in a couple of towns, Davis said. Accomplishing the entire list would add about $2.14 billion to the Kentucky gross domestic product, $625 million to personal earnings, and create or sustain 20,500 jobs, according to The Associated General Contractors of America. A similar Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce list seeks abut $322 million for sewer and water, transportation and alternative energy projects. Top-dollar projects include $209 million for Kentucky Lock and Olmsted (Ill.) Lock and Dam work vital to the river industry; $62.4 million for continued construction of the U.S. 60 bridge over the Tennessee River between Paducah and Ledbetter; and $18.4 million to expand sewers into an area including Riverport West and Barkley Regional Airport in west McCracken County. Energy Gov. Steve Beshear's 144-page energy plan calls for creating 40,000 energy production and conservation jobs by 2025 via seven strategies including replacing petroleum-based liquids with a "coal-to-liquids" industry and possibly using nuclear energy. He said a proposed $7.5 billion coal-to-liquid fuel plant in west McCracken County is the type of development his energy plan promotes. Clean Coal Energy Resources of Louisville is considering the plant, which may employ more than 1,000 workers once it is fully operational in five to seven years. Officials are expected to make a decision about the plant in early 2009. Beshear said one of the early goals would be to lift the state's 1979 ban on building nuclear power plants, considering that technological advances have made nuclear energy safer. He said Paducah's experience with nuclear energy would make it a prime site for a plant to recycle spent nuclear fuel. The U.S. Department of Energy's plans to build a recycling plant are on hold, but Paducah remains one of several potential sites. Beshear's plan includes five other strategies to meet the state's power needs, which the governor said will increase 40 percent within the 17 years. Among the strategies is increased production of biofuels. The largest biofuels project by far in the Paducah area is $400 million Four Rivers BioEnergy, off the Tennessee River at Calvert City. British investors -- who included the project in the Purchase wish list -- plan a 130-job plant to produce 130 million gallons of ethanol, a 35-million-gallon biodiesel plant employing 10, and a riverport for multiple users. The plants would be operational in 2010. Joe Walker can be contacted at 575-8656. To see more of The Paducah Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.paducahsun.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Paducah Sun, Ky. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |