HI-HO, HI-HO, IT'S OFF TO WORK WE GO

Washington School fifth-grade teacher Michelle Burnett viewed math test with Floyd Amos, center, and Kody Neighbors.

JCPenney merchandising assistant Amy Massey, left, rang up a sale for Judy Hammontree in the young men's department of JCPenney.

As many as 1,000 workers head for the mines each work day in Missouri.

More than 4,000 workers go to construction sites.

Another 8,000 go into classrooms five days a week.

Doctors, lawyers and judges ... truck drivers, mechanics and computer experts ... merchants, accountants and engineers ... there's something for everyone in today's diversified work force, especially throughout the 13 counties of Southeast Missouri, which comprise Missouri's Service Delivery Area 11.

Service industries, which include health and educational workers, is one of the fastest growing major industry divisions and is expected to provide as many as 1,500 more jobs in Southeast Missouri by the year 2000.

Service, manufacturing and retailing are prime drivers in most area economies, pointed out Don Shuck, supervisor at the Missouri Job Service office at Cape Girardeau.

Collectively, these three sectors represent 72.1 percent of wage and salaried employment in the Southeast Missouri. A slight growth to 72.9 percent by the turn of the century is projected.

The area, north, south and west of Cape Girardeau, is wooded and rugged to the northwest, with substantial mineral deposits. South, the Mississippi River valley widens into a broad, fertile plain that takes in six counties of the Bootheel, which has some of the richest farmland in the state.

The region is broken into two sectors, with one of the sectors consisting of Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Iron, Madison, Perry, St. Francois and Ste. Genevieve counties where manufacturers produce aircraft parts, bicycles, footwear, plastic products, paper products and automotive supplies.

The Bootheel region includes Dunklin, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Scott and Stoddard counties, which features a number of "Agribusiness" industries.

Both sectors are fueled in the work force by manufacturing, retail and services.

These same three sectors account for 52.1 percent of the work force in Southern Illinois, but are expected to increase over the next five years due to a dwindling mining work force.

These totals exclude agriculture figures, which account for a large percent of workers in both states. More than 9,000 people work on Southeast Missouri farms, with about half working 100 days or more off the farm.

About 3,000 people work in farming in Southern Illinois.

Some manufacturing jobs have disappeared from the Southeast Missouri business scene over the past year, including Thorngate, which will close its Chaffee plant this spring, eliminating 150 jobs.

"But there have been expansions of existing industries throughout the area," said Shuck. Goods-producing industries represent more than 24 percent of the area's 155,674-member work force.

That translates into more than 38,000 jobs, which rank between services and retail.

The service sector, which includes more than 9,000 education workers and 12,000 health care people, involves more than 40,000 workers.

Retail sales account for 19.7 percent of the work force, translating into just over 29,000 jobs, with a third of the positions involved in eating and drinking establishments. Food stores and general merchandise stores employ more than 4,000 workers.

Adding another nine counties to the Southeast sector, which includes the counties of Butler, Carter, Crawford, Dent, Oregon, Reynolds, Ripley, Shannon, Washington and Wayne, the population increases to more than 400,000 with 46 percent of the population included in the work force, or about 190,000.

This area also increases the farm work force to more than 13,500, with more than 6,000 farm operators working at least 100 or more days off the farm.

Current employment percentages and projections are prepared by the Occupational Information Unit of the Research and Analysis Section of the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Missouri Division of Employment Security personnel in six job service offices -- Cape Girardeau, Caruthersville, Kennett, Malden, Park Hills and Sikeston -- provide assistance in reviewing industry employment projections.

Illinois figures are provided by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

More people are involved in state government in Illinois (14 percent) than in manufacturing (12.1 percent). Only 7.4 percent of workers are involved in government in Southeast Missouri.

Unemployment in the Southeast Missouri area ranges from a low of 2.5 to 3.5 percent in Cape Girardeau to a high of 7.5 to 9 percent in Stoddard County.

Cape County has the largest work force in Southeast Missouri, with more than 34,000. Of that, more than 33,000 workers are employed.

St. Francois County is second on the list with 21,700 workers and more than 20,000 employed. Third on the list is Scott County, with 19,300 workers, 18,200 of them with jobs.

The average monthly unemployment rate for the entire 22-county area in Southeast Missouri in 1995 was 6.4 percent, with a work force of 190,596, with 178,343 working and 12,253 unemployed.

Missouri unemployment figures have also been down the past few months. Statewide, Missouri employment was at 96.5 percent in December and at 95.9 in January. Based on the January work force of 2.6 million, that translates into about 114,000 unemployed.