Oct. 2--HICKORY -- While Catawba County and the Greater Hickory Metro will continue to shed manufacturing jobs and add service jobs in coming years, the region will remain far more dependent on manufacturing employment than will much of the United States, said a data analyst with the Western Piedmont Council of Governments.

Like the rest of the country, Catawba County and the Greater Hickory Metro are moving away from a manufacturing-based economy and toward a service-based economy, Taylor Dellinger said.

Since 2000, the region has lost more than 35,160 jobs, or 18.8 percent, a larger percentage than in any other metropolitan statistical area in the state, according to the N.C. Employment Security Commission. Employment losses in the region were heaviest in the manufacturing sector, which shed 35,220 jobs from second quarter 2000 to fourth quarter 2008. That number exceeded net losses, as jobs were gained in some sectors.

Citing statistics from the state, Dellinger said that in 1990, 56 percent of Catawba County's jobs were in manufacturing and 20 percent were in services. Today, an estimated 28 percent of the county's jobs are in manufacturing and 47 percent are in services, Dellinger said.

He said according to state projections, in 2016, the percentage of manufacturing jobs in the county will have shrunk to 21 percent, while the percentage of service jobs will have grown to 53 percent.

"Still, 21 percent manufacturing will be about three times the national average," Dellinger said.

"Manufacturing will continue to be important to this region."

Dellinger was among speakers Thursday at the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce's "Planning Extraordinary Change for Business."

The three-day event was designed to identify future trends that need to be addressed to create and retain jobs, improve the area's quality of life and prepare Catawba County for growth in the 21st century, said Danny Hearn, chamber president.

"Planning Extraordinary Change for Business" began Wednesday with a bus trip to the Centennial Campus, a public/private research campus at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

The day trip was designed in part to determine how Catawba County can partner with the campus in economic development initiatives, Hearn said.