I first became aware of worker shortages in the Midwest earlier this summer when I was visiting the Minnesota north woods - an area whose economy is heavily dependent on tourist trade to fishing resorts. Owners of those resorts rely heavily on immigrant labor for what amounts to seasonal employment. The positions do not require skilled labor - waiting tables in restaurants, cleaning cabins, servicing the docks. Few Americans want such jobs for a six-month period, but lots of students in Scandinavia for example are (were) glad to come to northern Minnesota for a modestly-paying job in a pleasant and familiar environment. When immigration controls were tightened, many employers found such applicants less available.
The Wisconsin State Journal is now running a feature series entitled Workers Wanted: Wisconsin's Looming Crisis. Herewith some excerpts...
Employers from a broad range of industries are reporting difficulty finding workers — and not only for skilled professionals such as nurses, welders and computer programmers, who require a strong education and training system, but also for workers with a high school diploma and some additional training at restaurants, farms, construction sites, factories, senior care facilities, retailers and other businesses...Much more at the links.
There are already many state and regional efforts afoot to address the problem, though much of the focus has been on a "skills gap" — the shortage of workers for the advanced-skill jobs of the future that often require years of technical training — even as employers and economic development officials grapple with a much broader people shortage...
Wisconsin's 3.2 percent unemployment rate in July is near a record low and down from a peak of 9.2 percent in January 2010. That's well below what economists consider to be "full employment" — the level at which everyone who is willing and able to work is employed, or about 4 or 5 percent...
Wisconsin also has an aging workforce. Between 2010 and 2025, the 65-and-older population is expected to have increased by two-thirds, while the working-age population is expected to remain flat... The baby boomer retirement has been on the horizon for more than a decade, but the recession delayed some of its impact as older workers stayed in the workforce...
When employers say they can't find workers, what they often mean is they can't find workers willing to work at the wages and benefits offered... More than half (51 percent) of the jobs that listed a low-end wage listed hourly pay levels below the United Way's survival wage for a single person. Even among the jobs that listed a top pay range, 16 percent were below the survival wage...
Many employers around the state express frustration about the quality of the available workforce. They complain about new hires lacking minimal "employability" traits such as showing up for work on time, dressing appropriately and basic communication. Some describe applicants who won't return phone calls yet continue to apply for jobs elsewhere, possibly to fulfill the state's new requirements for receiving unemployment benefits...
Other factors contributing to the worker shortage in Wisconsin may include national immigration policy — though the national immigrant workforce has continued to grow steadily — rising incarceration rates, the growing opiate drug epidemic and a geographic mismatch in where workers and jobs are located, particularly between Milwaukee and its suburbs.
Low-income workers might lack access to transportation and child care, making it harder to work or receive training. In some cases the potential loss of public benefits or garnished child support payments make working for $10 to $12 an hour less appealing...
To milk his 70 cows he’s employed a few part- and full-time workers over the years. But hiring has become more challenging — there has been some decline in available immigrant labor and young workers too often spend time fixated on their phones, De Buhr said... In the past few years he raised hourly wages from $8 to $10 an hour, but workers are asking for as much as $14 an hour now, a sign of the tight labor market and the economic reality of how difficult it is to live on less... So in April, De Buhr cut out the need for two workers entirely by paying $200,000 for a robotic milker.. “It’s milking 24/7 and I don’t have to worry about somebody not showing up,” De Buhr said. “You can mess a herd of cows up in a big hurry if they’re not milked in a timely manner.”..
He worries if nursing homes can’t find quality workers “more and more seniors are going to be turned away from assisted living.” “I hate to say it, but you’re hiring the best of the worst,” Ammons said. “The cream of the crop are genuinely taken. No matter who walks through your door there’s one eye open about: ‘Why are you not working?’”
Related: "An Ohio factory owner said Saturday that though she has blue-collar jobs available at her company, she struggles to fill positions because so many candidates fail drug tests.
Regina Mitchell, a co-owner of Warren Fabricating & Machining in Hubbard, Ohio, told The New York Times this week that four out of 10 applicants otherwise qualified to be welders, machinists and crane operators will fail a routine drug test... "We have a 150-ton crane in our machine shop. And we're moving 300,000 pounds of steel around in that building on a regular basis. So I cannot take the chance to have anyone impaired running that crane, or working 40 feet in the air." [according to the NYT, she solved the problem by taking unqualified people and training them]
Photo credit: John Hart, State Journal.