Face the Facts: Tackling the struggle of filling open jobs in Connecticut

Republicans say they are job creators. Democrats promise to build out the middle class. Either way you say it, they are both trying to improve our economy by getting more people back to work.

But when you have tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs open, like we do here in Connecticut, and can’t fill them, there’s got to be a disconnect somewhere.

The Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA) released results of a business survey this week that shows employers are struggling to fill open positions.

CBIA’s Vice President of Public Policy Chris Davis explains where the disconnect is, and how we can begin to address it.

Mike Hydeck: Chris, welcome. You guys just did a survey of employers. What are they struggling with right now when it comes to trying to fill these jobs?

Chris Davis: Well, the two biggest challenges that they’re facing right now for our job creators, based on the survey that we did with Marcum that was released earlier this week, indicates that just finding skilled applicants to fill those jobs is the biggest challenge in that 46% of them have spent the most of their money in the last year in trying to fill those jobs. I mean, it’s a huge number with almost 50% of their outlay of expenses trying to fill those jobs. And we have some of our employers in the state that have job openings for months and months, unable to fill them, simply because there’s just not enough of a workforce here in Connecticut to meet those demands that our employers have.

Mike Hydeck: So where does that fall as far as trying to get that fixed, right? So does that mean we have too many kids going to a four-year university and they don’t want to go to build submarines or being part of that supply chain, or where do we go to try to make that communication palatable for people to take these jobs?

Chris Davis: Well, it’s multiple different types of issues all coming together all at once here, coming out of the pandemic. I think some of the emphasis on a four-year degree has certainly created part of this challenge, as almost 60 to 70, sometimes 80% of these jobs don’t require a four-year degree, so individuals could come right out of high school and be right into a very high paying, well-skilled job at Electric Boat, Sikorsky, but also our supply chain, and even outside of the manufacturing sector, a lot of these jobs no longer require four-year degrees as well. So kind of changing that emphasis from being college ready to being career ready will make a humongous difference in our ability to get more people into the workforce. Add that in with childcare issues that families are facing and the ability to try to get, especially women, back into the workforce coming out of the pandemic will make a big difference in getting people back into these jobs as well. But it’s important to note that there’s so many job openings here in Connecticut that if every single person who was unemployed or is unemployed right now were to take a job tomorrow, there would still be tens of thousands of jobs available from Connecticut employers right here in Connecticut. So increasing that population, increasing individuals coming out of schools with the skills that are necessary to do these jobs, those are the ways that we can solve this challenge.

Mike Hydeck: So Chris, in years past, Connecticut was rated as not a good place or not an easy place to do business. Your CEO, Chris DiPentima, said on this show that things are improving, like Connecticut’s new marketing efforts, like Make it Here campaign. Is that having an impact when it comes to trying to recruit people from even the whole region, not just Connecticut?

Chris Davis: Well, we’re seeing that Connecticut’s job gains have been sustained over the last several months. Connecticut has continued to grow in our workforce. We’ve had people coming into Connecticut. I think it’s certainly true that some of these campaigns are making a difference in that respect. I think the fiscal stability of the state has really led to employers and individuals realizing that Connecticut can be a place that they can grow, something that wasn’t the case maybe 10 years ago, that we’ve been able to see over the last few years because of the fiscal responsibility from our state government. So you’re starting to see all of these things starting to add up and hopefully be that positive impact that we’ve been waiting for in the growth of our state. But unless we grow our state’s population, unless we get more disconnected youth back into the workforce, unless we get more women participation in our workforce, there’s no way that we can kind of fill all of these jobs with what we have here, and that’s why we need to be able to set up an education system and a workforce development system that feeds this pipeline of workers, not just for today, but for many years to come.

Mike Hydeck: Alright, last question. I have a little over a minute. You mentioned childcare options, transportation, housing, are all issues that actually are on the table to try to pull this off. We know that state leaders have been slowly working on this, chipping away. What about the big employers? What about the Electric Boats of the world, or the Stanleys, or anybody else who needs a lot of these workers? Are they a part of that solution?

Chris Davis: Oh, most certainly, Mike. These employers, whether they be large ones like the ones you mentioned, Electric Boat, Sikorsky, Pratt and Whitney, or even our small supply chain manufacturers in other industries, they have their own training programs. We heard from our panel this week at our economic conference from Charles IT, that’s an IT company based out of Middletown. They have their own training programs to try to get people coming straight out of school into these jobs that are not just for today, but for the future. Employers are making a difference. They’re doing it on their own, and they’re partnering with the state and federal government for the many different training programs they have through Ready CT and other organizations here in our state. It’s all coming together, and what we need to do is make sure that we have policies coming out of Hartford that allow for this job growth and workforce development growth to really flourish here in the state, and that’s what we’re working towards here at CBIA.

Mike Hydeck: And I know you’re looking forward to another big report next week to talk about the conditions on the ground, including our disconnected youth and so many other topics.