Greater Richmond

Advantages for Life Sciences

Labor and Demographics

Our population of over one million people is culturally and ethnically diverse, with a growing international community. Ten colleges and universities produce a steady stream of employees for new and expanding companies in fields including business, engineering, law, and medicine. According to local staffing firms, the Richmond Region is an easy sell to top-level professionals and managers. The area’s outstanding quality of life helps companies recruit, relocate, and retain all the right people to meet current and future needs.

The Richmond metropolitan area is a magnet for labor, drawing a workforce from more than 40 localities statewide. Diverse industries and companies combined with numerous educational institutions provide an ample supply of employees with positive work attitudes and a range of skills and experience for new and expanding companies.

Labor Availability

Young people graduating from high school, college, and other training are the largest continuing source of labor for the long term. In the Richmond MSA there are more than 9,800 high school graduates each year and the area’s institutions of higher education confer more than 7,300 post-secondary degrees each year.

Total employment in the Richmond-Petersburg MSA was 566,600 in September 2003.

In the metro area, 42.7 percent of the population is in the prime working ages of 20 to 44 versus 40.1 percent for the U.S.

Labor Management Relations

• Virginia is a right-to-work state.

• The Richmond Region and the state of Virginia have low levels of unionization and union election activity.

• Less than 1 percent of the metro area’s 27,600 private business establishments are known to be unionized (130 manufacturing and service businesses).

• Around 5.3% of the private sector workforce is unionized (19,400 union members).

• No office-intensive operation is known to be unionized.

• Work stoppages are few in number and usually part of a nationwide or statewide action.

Labor Costs

• Wages are moderate in the metro area.

• Virginia has the 5^th lowest cost of Workers’ Compensation for manufacturers in the nation.

• Virginia’s Unemployment Compensation costs are among the lowest in the nation; in 2002, 78 percent of Virginia employees paid the minimum rate (0).

Estimates and Projections for Selected Occupations,

1998 and 2008

Source: Virginia Employment Commission, Industry and Occupational Employment Projections: 1998-2008, Richmond-Petersburg MSA.