NCRVE Home | Site Search | Product Search

<< >> Up Title Contents NCRVE Home

Frankton

Frankton, a city of 350,000 in an area of 650,000 residents, is located in the middle of a rich agricultural area and serves as the financial center for the region. The area's economy has historically depended upon agriculture, including the food processing industry, and many of the firms located in Frankton are food-related enterprises. Because Frankton's economy remains tied to agriculture, employment rates fluctuate seasonally. Nevertheless, there has been a gradual shift in employment toward the service economy. Of the ten largest employers, nine are either service or government related.

The Frankton area has been experiencing population growth through in-migration as well as increasing birth rates within the population. Frankton has one of the higher numbers of children per family in the state. There has also been a pattern of in-migration. According to economic development experts in Frankton, in-migration is occurring at both ends of the economic spectrum--with professionals who are leaving nearby large cities and with Asian refugees who were primarily agricultural peasants in their country of origin. In the last decade, Frankton's Asian population has gone from under one percent to just over ten percent of the population. As a result, there are now seventy-six different languages spoken in the Frankton school district. The district states that fifty percent of the students entering the school system are not native English speakers.

A state university campus and a community college are located in Frankton. The community college, with a Fall enrollment of about fifteen thousand, is known statewide to be active in customized training; in addition, the college supports a short-term job training center that provides noncredit courses of twenty to thirty weeks, largely for JTPA and GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence) clients. Another community college located to the northeast also serves the Frankton labor market, and the school district located just north of the city operates an area vocational school, serving both adults and secondary school students, that is used by some employers.


<< >> Up Title Contents NCRVE Home
NCRVE Home | Site Search | Product Search