Business bemoans labor shortage

Does anybody out there need a job?

Well, not just anybody.

Northern Colorado companies, including big employers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Eastman Kodak Co., as well as small technology-based businesses, are reporting high levels of entry-level job vacancies.

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But those same companies’ recruiters are turning away record numbers of applicants for the jobs because they lack the basic skills the employers need.

“We’re not talking computer engineering,´ said Dick Wesolowski, director of human resources for Kodak Colorado Division in Windsor. “We need an eighth-grade level of reading and reasoning for many of the jobs. But we’re having only light success in finding the people to take the jobs.”

The major reason cited by most employers is that students with good math and reading skills continue on to college, leaving a meager pool of high-school-educated work applicants with just the right levels of skills for semi-skilled entry-level jobs.

Companies such as Kodak are responding by raising wages and benefits packages to attract and hold onto skilled workers. In addition, some of the larger employers have begun recruitment screening and training programs through area community colleges to help select and train workers.

But entry-level jobs at companies such as Kodak, Starpak Inc., Hewlett-Packard and Teledyne Water Pik are quite different than they were five years ago.

“We take high-school graduates, but they have to prove proficiency in several areas, and that’s where the problem comes,” explained Kevin Cory, director of human resources education at Starpak in Greeley.

“You’ve got a steadily improving economy, with companies making money and needing more workers,´ said Tom Looft, director of the Colorado Department of Labor Job Service Center in Fort Collins. “This means a better deal for the workers who do have the skills because employers offer more. But finding those workers can be tough.”

Employment growing

Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley reported net employment increases of 7,650 workers between June 1994 and June 1995, a 4 percent increase, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

This followed 5 percent and 6 percent employment increases in 1994 and 1993, respectively.

Entry-level skilled jobs with the highest growth rates included network control operators, technical support specialists, legal, engineering, medical and hospital technical-support staff, manufacturing, assemblers, and parts and inventory clerks.

Construction and retail employers also reported exceptionally high growth, though the highest number of job vacancies in those industries tends toward lower skill-level positions, Looft said.

Despite population growth and attempts by companies to recruit workers from elsewhere in the state, “the pool of workers available for some of these entry jobs has simply been drained,” Looft said.

The worker shortage has spurred a coalition of companies, economic-development groups, chambers of commerce and educators to form the 30-member Northern Colorado Workforce Alliance to study the causes of the worker shortage and recommend solutions.

“We’re looking at the problem short-term and long-term,´ said Mike Hauser, president of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce. “But we’re used to worrying about long-term problems. This is immediate. We’ve even had one employer move some operations to Aurora to find workers.”

It’s a far cry from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when jobs were scarce and applicants plentiful.

What’s changed is the nature of the workplace. Technology integration has led to new job descriptions requiring certain math and computer skills even for workers who don’t have high-school diplomas.

In random tests conducted by Aims Community College of approximately 160 area high-school students over the past few months, only one student tested possessed the basic level of skills most employers require of their high-school-educated employees, said Dick Wood, dean of continuing education at Aims.

Both Aims and Front Range Community College are helping employers screen job applicants and also are providing training programs to get workers up to the required skill levels.

Shortages statewide

Northern Colorado isn’t alone in its dilemma. The Colorado Department of Labor reports shortages of skilled workers for entry-level jobs throughout the Front Range.

Ben Garcia, senior economist for labor-market information at the Colorado Department of Labor, noted that the trend was showing up in his agency’s 1994 statistics.

“We know there are pockets of shortages in certain skills,” Garcia said, adding that his agency often cannot track exact shortages because some employers do not use state job-service offices to fill the vacancies.

A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that employers across the United States that have adapted technology in the past few years are now competing furiously for a shrinking pool of non-college-educated workers that have good math, compute and problem-solving skills.

While technology job requirements – such as for computer-operated factory work stations – have cut the number of qualified applicants, the companies seeking those workers have added incentives to attract the right workers.

“We have changed our employment process and now offer workers permanent employment after six months instead of after two years,´ said Kodak’s Wesolowski.

Kodak raises wages

Kodak also raised its entry-level wages to $7.95 an hour, and its permanent workers are entitled to a full range of benefits, including health and life insurance, paid holidays and vacation, profit sharing, retirement and a tuition-aid plan, Wesolowski said.

“This has helped, but we still haven’t seen the overall improvements in the applicant pool we would like,” he added.

Wesolowski said that about 30 percent of people who respond to Kodak’s employment ads either don’t show up for their interview appointments or fail the employment tests.

Kodak has hired more than 100 entry-level employees in the past nine months, with a retention rate of a little more than 50 percent, he said.

“We have a common concern over both the quantity and quality” of entry-level workers, said Starpak’s Cory. The company is recruiting for 100 technical-support positions.

“It’s an overall deterioration of the work force in both ways,” he added.

While Colorado Department of Labor officials say it is difficult to quantify the exact number of jobs that are going unfilled and causing the concern, they concur that most of the shortages range from minimum-wage unskilled laborer jobs to semi-skilled technical support and manufacturing jobs paying up to $10 an hour and offering full benefits.

Those wages and benefits have changed drastically from the early 1990s, when a minimum wage for temporary employment with few benefits was the rule for many entry-level workers, Looft said.

“Now we are seeing wages over $6 an hour to start, often with permanent placement and full benefits,” he said.

A mixed blessing

In a state that has shifted from recession to more than 4 percent annual business growth in the past six years, having more jobs than workers is a mixed blessing.

“It’s a shame to complain when the economy is doing well,” Wesolowski said, “but we have had to do some major re-thinking and changing in how we recruit people in the past year.”

The Windsor Kodak plant has about 20 entry-level job openings, Wesolowski said, an improvement from November a year ago, when the company was struggling to fill 50 openings.

Company representatives say they will continue to try and resolve their short-term labor shortages through enticements such as paying worker finder-fees to existing employees and conducting on-the-job training.

The most-effective solutions may rest with long-term strategies. Aims Community College now offers skill assessments for employers and potential job applicants that rate job candidates’ skill levels against national standards.

Called the ACT Work Keys, the tests assess worker skill levels in seven key areas, and results can be reported in one hour, Aims’ Wood said.

He added that Aims was the first accredited ACT Work Keys Service Center in the United States. “This gives employers the results they need, fast,” he said.

“We made the decision to pursue this last year when it became obvious that we would need to work ever more closely with employers as our customers,” Wood said.

2,000 take work test

Thus far, the ACT Work Keys tests have been administered to some 2,000 job applicants in the Greeley-Fort Collins area. Approximately 75 percent of those taking the tests did not have the required level of reading and math skills, Wood said.

Wood and his staff plan to offer computer-assisted training programs to employers as one remedy for the skill deficits, he said.

“We also have the whole issue of Generation X,´ said Roland Mower, president of Fort Collins Inc. and a member of the Northern Colorado Workforce Alliance. “They often want more interaction, so they take a lower-paying retail job at first. Then it takes time for them to realize that their wage possibilities are limited. Then they still must become aware of the skill levels required in other industries, get the training, and get hired. It takes time for them to filter into the more skilled jobs.”

Employees are also becoming more selective about commuting.

“People used to commute from Loveland to Fort Collins for a $6 or $7 an hour job, but now they don’t have to,” Looft said.

“Employers are also learning that the younger employees value their time off and won’t necessarily jump at every opportunity to work overtime.

“Flexible working hours and stability are becoming more important, as well as the chance to take college classes or more training. Many of the employers are responding now with much more attractive employee benefits,” Looft said.

“We expect 1996 to be similar in terms of job growth and demands for skills. The employers will have to look for more innovative methods and enticements to get and hold their skilled workers,” he said.