Paul Post
By Paul Post
Government and employer-driven workforce development programs are critical to overcoming a nationwide labor shortage problem that’s reaching crisis proportions locally as well.
That’s what elected officials told more than 200 people at the recent Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce Lunch With Legislators gathering on Feb. 25 at the Queensbury Hotel in Glens Falls .
“There’s not a single employer I’ve visited in my district who’s said this isn’t an issue for them,” said state Sen. Dan Stec.
U.S. Rep. Elisa Stefanik said, “Every small business I go to, every manufacturer, every hospital, they tell me one of their top concerns is attracting labor.”
They discussed a variety of business-related issues with state Sen. Jake Ashby and Assembly members Carrie Woerner and Matt Simpson. Woerner and Simpson’s districts encompass northern Saratoga County.
During the pandemic, many people discovered they had enough financial resources to retire and opt out of the workforce, Woerner said. “And a lot of people have chosen to stop working for somebody else and start their own business,” she said. “Business starts have skyrocketed the past couple of years (23,745 this January versus 16,862 in January 2019).”
Also, there’s significantly fewer people ages 35-39 and 55-59 than there are in the 18-24 age bracket. “So there’s a shortage of people with 10 to 20 years of experience that you’re all counting on,” Woerner said. “The only thing we can do is invest in smart workforce development.”
But this must be done strategically, training people for the jobs that are most available. “We’re seeing an increase in jobs in our region, but they aren’t in manufacturing,” Woerner said. “They’re in education, health care, professional and business services, leisure, hospitality and construction. We really need to focus our workforce development efforts on where the jobs are being created. We’ve got to recognize that our economy up here is shifting. We need to be paying attention to where the puck is going, not where it’s been.”
Stefanik criticized the extension of unemployment assistance long after the pandemic ended “where the incentive was for folks to stay out of work rather than go back to work.”
“We’ve incentivized people to stay home and not go back to the workforce,” Stec said. He also cited the state’s declining population as a reason for fewer eligible workers. Almost 300,000 people left New York for other states last year.
“I think a lot of them are leaving for economic reasons,” Stec said.
Simpson, a former Warren County Industrial Development Agency chair, said job retention is just as important as job creation. “We need to have a business climate that keeps people here, and make sure after (tax) incentives are taken advantage of that there’s a sustainable plant that’s going to stay here,” he said.
Event attendee Shawn Weinberger, of Queensbury-based KEENA Staffing, agreed with Simpson’s assessment. “You need to invest in people within your business or another one outside of yours, to pluck those employees away,” he said. “If you aren’t taking care of people they’re going to leave you.”
KEENA helps people looking for new career opportunities, and assists companies in their search for talented personnel.
Legislators also discussed the ongoing need for improved broadband, which is critical not only for economic development, but public health, safety and education as well. Ashby said there’s a cellular phone “dead zone” on Route 9 in Colonie, near Siena College. “There’s no cell service until well into Latham,” he said. “It speaks to the longstanding inefficiencies with some of these programs.”
Stec said he’s concerned that capacity issues in urban issues could take already inadequate resources away from rural areas. His 41st District encompasses northeastern New York from Warren County to the Canadian border.
“We’re seeing a lot of people who want to move to rural communities because they’re able to work remotely instead of someplace they don’t want to live any more,” Woerner said. “All they need is a house and a wire, so let’s get the wires.”
In addition to these issues, Stefanik said her chief economic concern is rising inflation. “It impacts every family, every small business, every farm, every manufacturer,” she said. “I would say it’s the top economic concern I hear from our district.”
She is sponsoring a Reign in Inflation Act that would mandate analysis of the inflationary impact of executive actions taken by the president.
“We need transparencies for these executive actions because it’s been causing inflation to rise faster than at any time during my lifetime,” she said.
Stefanik also called for reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act, which she described as the “underpinning for all local workforce development.”
But she said the business community is best suited for driving workforce development because it’s “most in touch with the technical training needed to develop that pipeline.”
“If you go to employers they can tell you exactly what skill sets they need,” she said.