By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
A recently released labor study for the Ellis County area shows the labor pool has increased despite a decrease in the area’s population.
With unemployment rates hovering in the low 2 percent range, the demand from is there. Employees with the right skills need to be matched with the right employers, said Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development Director Aaron White.
More people in the labor pool, which encompasses nine counties around Hays (Barton, Ellis, Graham, Ness, Osborne, Rooks, Rush, Russell and Trego) say they would be willing to take other employment, compared to similar studies done in 2004 and 2012. The labor pool is defined as those people within a 45-minute, one-way commute of Hays.
The population of the labor pool went from 83,669 in 2004 to 82,830 in 2018, but the labor pool jumped from 18,420 to 25,697 during the same time period.
White said the increase could be a reflection of the number of people who are willing to make career changes.
Low unemployment numbers continue to be a challenge to growth in Ellis County, White said. Hays is at about 2 percent unemployment and the labor basin has ranged between 2 percent to 4 percent since 2004. The federal government considers 4 percent of the population unemployable, which means Hays is employing what might be considered the unemployable, White said.
“Existing companies look at that and look at expansions and realize that we have such a tight labor pool they may look at expanding elsewhere or holding off expansions and turning down work because they can’t meet the labor requirement,” White said.
“Companies that are looking to locate to Hays may see low unemployment numbers as an automatic concern for recruitment of a workforce,” he continued. “Employers who are already here may see incoming companies that are expanding this way as competition for the same workforce, so it makes it a very challenging environment for expansion.”
Wages tend to stagnant across a workforce if unemployment numbers remain low because there is not an influx of new companies or expansion of existing companies, White said.
About 28 percent of the those surveyed said they consider themselves underemployed. About half of those employees came from the service and retail sector, according to the study, which was generated by the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University.
Area manufacturers have a demand for production employees and other skilled laborers, White said. These jobs could be filled from employees in the service sector, but they would need training.
“We still see our biggest employment segment, and it has been this way for all three reports, across the labor basin is the service and retail sector,” White said. “It also includes some of the lower-paying jobs.
“These are positions that are not necessarily ideal for long-term careers, so those folks become ideal candidates. … for us to look at what skill sets do we need to provide, what training can we offer to the public? That trains up some of those lower-paid employees so they can pursue a career with greater wage, greater benefits and greater opportunity. It is more of a career track as opposed to just a job.”
Local manufacturers are willing to provide on-the-job training.
“Some employers even tell us there is an advantage to hiring somebody who maybe doesn’t have a strong background in manufacturing because they don’t have to break bad habits,” White said. “They train them up to do a particular skill set exactly how they want them to do it for their company. There can be an advantage to that.”
When the Coalition finds a gap in skilled employees, it works with NCK Tech and Fort Hays State University to create training programs to fill those gaps, White said. The Coalition is working with NCK Tech on a training program on basic production skills that will make local employees more appealing to local industry, White said.
The area is also seeing a high demand for commercial drivers. White said his last estimate was 200 openings for CDL positions in Ellis County. Ellis County does not have a CDL training program, and the nearest programs are in Beloit or at Barton County Community College. The Coalition is working to try to bring a CDL program to the area.
Perception is also a problem, White said.
“We created a short-course welding program a few years ago. We ran three classes through that — about 32 students attended that program,” White said. “One of the feedbacks that we got from these students is that when they read advertisements saying, ‘No training necessary. No experience necessary. We’ll train on the job,’ they didn’t necessarily think that it applied to them.”
Woman make up 56 percent of the Ellis County labor pool. However, White acknowledged some women struggle to see themselves in manufacturing.
“I had a local manufacturer who told me one of their very best welders is a young woman who had no experience before she went to work for them and turned out to be an exceptional welder when trained by the company. Women are starting to realize across all industries not just locally, the trade skills are not just a domain for guys and that women are every bit as capable of performing trades and skilled labor — welding and machinists — as the men can.
“I have even had trainers in some cases say working with women is easier because the guys they work with assume they already know it. It is trying to break bad habits. Women are more open to learning the process the way the company wants them to learn it. (They have) better attention to detail in many ways.”
For a section of workers, child care continues to be an issue. Only about 2 percent of the labor pool indicated they needed child care and could not access it. Although the percentage is low, this accounts for 895 people, which is more children than the child care system can absorb, White said.
White said the Coalition specifically asked the Docking Institute to address child care because it believed stay-at-home mothers could be a pocket of untapped labor. Those needing child care was smaller than White expected. White said the regulations to open a child care facility can be burdensome. The ECC has worked in recent years with several operators in attempts to bring child care facilities to the area, but the costs were so great the operators could not operate at a profit.
Manufacturers may consider offering alternative work schedules to tap into this portion of labor pool. One manufacturer in the area has offered a schedule specifically tailored for moms. The schedules start after parents drop their children off at school and releases early enough for the parents to pick up children after school.
Among those who categorized themselves as underemployed, the largest group, about 24 percent, said they were underemployed because of education. More than 35 percent of this group had bachelor’s degrees. Employers have high demand for science, engineering and math graduates, whereas demand for college graduates in the humanities has declined, White said.
“Another thing that kids going to college need to think about is where the demand is,” he said.
A student may be able to make more money in a trade with shorter training time and less or no student loan debt. White said capturing students who attend some college, but don’t graduate with a degree is also a goal. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 41 percent of college students will not have completed a four-year degree within six years of starting college.
Better yet, communities can start engaging with students in high school or even middle school about the benefits of technical training or entrepreneurship programs.
“I think one of the areas you really have to promote is educating parents about opportunities,” White said. “You will still see a lot of parents when they are talking to guidance counselors or at career nights, it is the parent who is saying, ‘No, my son or daughter is going to go to college.’ Whether that student is truly suited to complete a university degree, that is where they are going. It is almost like they don’t have an option.”
They don’t realize they have some very good trade school, tech options for students that can provide very well for their long-term future.”
The conservancy recently transferred 160 acres of Richardson County bluff land to the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. The tribe and the conservancy agreed to a conservation easement, which prevents development incompatible with the land’s ecological value.
