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Ms. Rygas asked what percentage of the work force the top ten growing occupations represented. She also asked what indicators the State used to portray the shift in what appeared to be the quality of employment. Mr. Potiowsky said the percentage was growing on a compounded basis by about 1-½ percent each year. He said the top ten categories represented about 30,000 jobs in Lane County. The State did not have quality of employment indicators. However, he pointed out that average household incomes in Lane County had dropped over time. That had a relationship to other issues, such as consumption patterns and the growth of the two-earner family. Mr. Kahle asked if there were jobs that were hard for the State to track. Mr. Potiowsky said single proprietorships and home occupations can be missed by State surveys. Ms. Pierce said it appeared Lane County was losing ground in terms of personal income due to the shift in employment sectors. She questioned what the information was telling the committee. She continued to be concerned about what problem the committee was trying to solve. She did not support the kind of job creation that continued the downward trend in personal incomes. Was the committee going after job growth, family wage jobs, or families in the 25-35 demographic? Ms. Smith arrived. Views of Local Economic Development 2. What is Economic Development and Why DSes it Matter? Jack Roberts, Director of the Lane Metro Partnership, provided the presentation. He focused his remarks on the traded and nontraded sectors of the economy, saying that frequently discussions of economic development come down to local versus nonlocal businesses and large versus small, which were not the most important considerations. Traded jobs brought in more dollars to the economy and created new wealth. He noted that about one-third of the economy was the traded sector, and two-thirds was the nontraded sector, or what the community bought and sold to each other. Those proportions were self-adjusting as growth in the traded sector drove growth in the nontraded sector, and vice versa. Mr. Roberts emphasized that the driving force of economic development was the traded sector, and those were the jobs the region was competing for. He did not think incentives should be offered to companies that provide nontraded sector jobs. Incentives should be focused on the traded sector. He said the region was losing traded, or manufacturing, jobs and gaining nontraded, or service, jobs because of global competition and because for the traded sector, productivity was key, and its was highly automated. Mr. Roberts said there was no "steady state," and it was important to replenish lost traded sector jobs. Mr. Roberts said frequently people encourage economic development dollars to be directed toward home grown businesses because they believe those businesses do not leave. However, MINUTES--Mayor's Committee on Economic Development March 8, 2004 Page 3