Statistics showing a drop in average Boone County wages resurfaced yesterday at a Columbia Chamber of Commerce meeting as the organization discussed its developing strategic plan.

The average county wage in the private sector dropped 7.6 percent during the past year, according to numbers that Regional Economic Development Inc. gathered from the Missouri Economic Research Information Center.

MERIC calculates the average county wage for the private sector for each year, beginning in July. The average wage effective through July 2006 was $30,758, but the wage calculated effective until July 2007 is only $28,431.

Some business leaders view the wage change as an indication that lower-wage jobs are growing faster than higher-paying jobs with benefits.

Chamber of commerce President Don Laird said he believes that life sciences and technology are growth sectors that offer the types of jobs Columbia should attract.

Boone County Southern District Commissioner Karen Miller said more manufacturing jobs are needed.

"I just think as a community, we need to be more open to manufacturing," Miller said. "We have a certain attitude because we are such an educated community, but we overlook that not everyone goes to college. We need to have jobs for those in the skilled labor sector. We want to have opportunities for them to have these jobs rather than one that requires a college education."

Laird said the falling average wage was first brought up at a joint chamber of commerce-REDI economic conference in November.

"These numbers showed that even though other indicators were positive - like low unemployment - we may be having difficulties being as well off as we’d like to be," he said.

Laird said the local economy, overall, is good, but that job creation has been in sectors such as retail rather than "high-wage-paying jobs."

David Meyer, marketing director for REDI, said he didn’t want to "overinterpret the data" but that the numbers weren’t necessarily a sign the county is losing jobs.

"Someone explained it to me in baseball terms," he said. "If Albert Pujols hits .330 and you replace him with three players that hit .110, you get the same number of hits, but your team average goes down."

Meyer agreed that the drop in average wages could indicate that many new jobs in the county are in the retail, restaurant and service sectors, not higher-paying jobs with benefits.

"I think it should reinforce the fact that we as a community and county look at attracting and retaining high-quality, high-paying jobs," he said. "Manufacturing should be an overall strategy for this."

On Tuesday, REDI representatives appeared before the Boone County Commission to encourage a change in Chapter 100, the county’s tax incentive policy, as a way to attract manufacturing jobs that have migrated out of the county.

Dave Griggs, a member of REDI’s incentive committee, told the county commission last month that some 740 jobs disappeared because of downsizing at 3M and the closing of the Knernshield Manufacturing and Summit Polymers plants. If Collins & Aikman, an automotive parts manufacturer, closes as predicted, 250 more jobs could leave.

The county commission agreed to Chapter 100 changes, including incentives for investments of at least $5 million in vacated or threatened-to-be-vacated plants that would create or retain at least 50 jobs.

Miller supported those changes. "If we have empty buildings and someone is willing to invest, it will help us as a community to fill those buildings."

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