As Layoffs Persist, Good Jobs Go Unfilled

[one...two...tree 2,762]

by Christopher Leonard

In a brutal job market, here's a task that might sound easy: Fill jobs in nursing, engineering and energy research that pay $55,000 to $60,000, plus benefits.

Yet even with 15 million people hunting for work, even with the unemployment rate nearing 10 percent, some employers can't find enough qualified people for good-paying career jobs.

Ask Steve Jones, a hospital recruiter in Indianapolis who's struggling to find qualified nurses, pharmacists and MRI technicians. Or Ed Baker, who's looking to hire at a U.S. Energy Department research lab in Richland, Wash., for $60,000 each.

Economists say the main problem is a mismatch between available work and people qualified to do it. Millions of jobs with attractive pay and benefits that once drew legions of workers to the auto industry, construction, Wall Street and other sectors are gone, probably for good. And those who lost those jobs generally lack the right experience for new positions popping up in health care, energy and engineering.

Many of these specialized jobs were hard to fill even before the recession. But during downturns, recruiters tend to become even choosier, less willing to take financial risks on untested workers.

The mismatch between job opening and job seeker is likely to persist even as the economy strengthens and begins to add jobs. It also will make it harder for the unemployment rate, now at 9.8 percent, to drop down to a healthier level.

"Workers are going to have to find not just a new company, but a new industry," said Sophia Koropeckyj, managing director of Moody's Economy.com. "A fifty-year-old guy who has been screwing bolts into the side of a car panel is not going to be able to become a health care administrator overnight."

It's become especially hard to find accountants, health care workers, software sales representatives, actuaries, data analysts, physical therapists and electrical engineers, labor analysts say. And employers that demand highly specialized training – like biotech firms that need plant scientists or energy companies that need geotechnical engineers to build offshore platforms – struggle even more to fill jobs.

The trend has been intensified by the speed of the job market decline, Koropeckyj said. The nation has lost a net 7.6 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Yet it can take a year or more for a laid-off worker to gain the training and education to switch industries. That means health care jobs are going unfilled even as laid-off workers in the auto, construction or financial services industries seek work.

"So we have this army of the unemployed" without the necessary skills, Koropeckyj said.

Sitting in his office overlooking the Clarian Health complex, Jones leafed through some of the applications he's received. One came from a hotel worker who listed his experience as, "Cleaning rooms; make beds, clean tubes, vacuum." Another was from a fitness instructor whose past duties included signing up gym members.

Many of the jobless seem to be applying for any opening they see, Jones said.

"You just don't have the supply to fill those particular positions," he said of the more than 200 "critical" jobs he needs to fill at Clarian, including nurses, pharmacists, MRI technicians and ultrasound technologists.

Contributing to the problem is that in a tough economy, employers take longer to assess applicants and make a hiring decision. By contrast, "in a healthier economy, you don't wait around for the perfect person," said Lawrence Katz, a professor of labor economics at Harvard.

To be sure, employers in most sectors of the economy are having no trouble filling jobs – especially those, like receptionists, hotel managers or retail clerks, that don't require specialized skills.

But as more jobs vanish for good, the gap between the unemployed and the requirements of today's job openings is widening. Throughout the economy, an average of six people now compete for each job opening – the highest ratio on government records dating to 2000.

Sifting through applications for jobs at the U.S. Energy Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state, Baker said he sees "people that have worked in other areas, and now they're trying to apply that skill set to the energy arena."

"Unfortunately, that's not the skill set we need."

The jobs opened up after the lab received federal stimulus money to research energy-efficient buildings. Baker needs employees with backgrounds in city management and a grasp of the building codes needed to design energy-efficient buildings. Yet even a salary of $140,000 for senior researchers isn't drawing enough qualified applicants.

Baker said he's getting resumes from well-educated people, including some from information technology workers who want to enter the green-energy field. But he said it could take a year to get an unqualified employee up to speed on all the building codes they need to know.

"We're running out of people to train" new employees, he said. "We simply cannot attract enough (qualified) people."

The lab has hired a recruiter for the first time to fill dozens of positions. Rob Dromgoole, the recruiter, is going so far as to make cold calls to college professors. He's also visiting academic conferences to pitch jobs.

The trend has left jobseekers like Joe Sladek anxious and frustrated. Sladek's 23 years in the auto industry haven't helped his efforts to land a job in alternative energy since he was laid off a year ago.

As a quality control engineer for auto supplier Dura Automotive Systems Inc. in Mancelona, Mich., he made about $75,000. Sladek would review technical reports to make sure the factory's auto parts matched the specifications of clients like General Motors and Toyota.

He hoped to parlay that experience into a similar job at a factory making windmill blades or solar panels. Several factories were hiring, and Sladek landed a few interviews. But he never heard back.

At PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago, there's a shortage of qualified applicants for management jobs in tax services, auditing and consulting. Rod Adams, the company's recruiting leader, said huge pay packages on Wall Street siphoned off lots of business school graduates earlier this decade.

"That made our pipeline more scarce," he said.

Some of the openings at PricewaterhouseCoopers pay around $100,000 and don't even require graduate degrees – just specialized accounting certifications or other credentials.

Formerly successful bankers or hedge fund managers don't necessarily qualify.

"We've gotten a lot more resumes, but they haven't been the right people," Adams said.

___

Associated Press reporters Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington and Mike Smith in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/04/a...html?view=print

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/04/a...html?view=print

[Pooky 3,930]

And part of the problem is that employers aren't prepared to pay for the retraining themselves. They don't want to have to make the investment of time and money, in part because times are difficult, and it won't make the bottom line look as good, but also in part because they are lazy. Lazy in that employers believe that retraining in an economy like this should be done on someone else's (i.e. the taxpayers') dime.

Times are bad, the Federal Government is helping everyone else, why can't they help me by subsidizing retraining programmes for the unemployed?

A lot of businesses have gotten too comfortable, too apathetic, to consider taking a risk and hiring someone whose skills aren't exactly what they need, but close enough that with some retraining they will more than fit the bill.

I was lucky. And now my employer is finding out just how beneficial the chance they took is working out to be.

[Dan J 277]

And part of the problem is that employers aren't prepared to pay for the retraining themselves. They don't want to have to make the investment of time and money, in part because times are difficult, and it won't make the bottom line look as good, but also in part because they are lazy. Lazy in that employers believe that retraining in an economy like this should be done on someone else's (i.e. the taxpayers') dime.

Times are bad, the Federal Government is helping everyone else, why can't they help me by subsidizing retraining programmes for the unemployed?

A lot of businesses have gotten too comfortable, too apathetic, to consider taking a risk and hiring someone whose skills aren't exactly what they need, but close enough that with some retraining they will more than fit the bill.

I was lucky. And now my employer is finding out just how beneficial the chance they took is working out to be.

Its also a matter of time and resources. We are looking for good PHP web developers at my company and they are few and between. We don't have the time or people to take a junior level developer and get them up to speed.

[Pooky 3,930]

And part of the problem is that employers aren't prepared to pay for the retraining themselves. They don't want to have to make the investment of time and money, in part because times are difficult, and it won't make the bottom line look as good, but also in part because they are lazy. Lazy in that employers believe that retraining in an economy like this should be done on someone else's (i.e. the taxpayers') dime.

Times are bad, the Federal Government is helping everyone else, why can't they help me by subsidizing retraining programmes for the unemployed?

A lot of businesses have gotten too comfortable, too apathetic, to consider taking a risk and hiring someone whose skills aren't exactly what they need, but close enough that with some retraining they will more than fit the bill.

I was lucky. And now my employer is finding out just how beneficial the chance they took is working out to be.

Its also a matter of time and resources. We are looking for good PHP web developers at my company and they are few and between. We don't have the time or people to take a junior level developer and get them up to speed.

But how much time are you losing while looking for someone?

We have been in the same boat for 2 years looking for someone with MEPF estimating skills. 2 years. It's insane.

[Heracles 417]

Its also a matter of time and resources. We are looking for good PHP web developers at my company and they are few and between. We don't have the time or people to take a junior level developer and get them up to speed.

You cannot find anyone. wow

But how much time are you losing while looking for someone?

We have been in the same boat for 2 years looking for someone with MEPF estimating skills. 2 years. It's insane.

MEPF?

[Pooky 3,930]

Its also a matter of time and resources. We are looking for good PHP web developers at my company and they are few and between. We don't have the time or people to take a junior level developer and get them up to speed.

You cannot find anyone. wow

But how much time are you losing while looking for someone?

We have been in the same boat for 2 years looking for someone with MEPF estimating skills. 2 years. It's insane.

MEPF?

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing & Fire Protection

Sowwy

[natty bumppo 297]

Its also a matter of time and resources. We are looking for good PHP web developers at my company and they are few and between. We don't have the time or people to take a junior level developer and get them up to speed.

You cannot find anyone. wow

But how much time are you losing while looking for someone?

We have been in the same boat for 2 years looking for someone with MEPF estimating skills. 2 years. It's insane.

MEPF?

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing & Fire Protection

Sowwy

they aren't interested in filling the position. looks better on the budget not to have the slot filled ....

[Pooky 3,930]

Its also a matter of time and resources. We are looking for good PHP web developers at my company and they are few and between. We don't have the time or people to take a junior level developer and get them up to speed.

You cannot find anyone. wow

But how much time are you losing while looking for someone?

We have been in the same boat for 2 years looking for someone with MEPF estimating skills. 2 years. It's insane.

MEPF?

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing & Fire Protection

Sowwy

they aren't interested in filling the position. looks better on the budget not to have the slot filled ....

I know for a fact they are. The third party consultants' fees we're paying out because the capability doesn't exist in-house would easily cover their salary and benefits package. The problem is availability of experience, and location.

[NickD 203]

Yeah sure, sell your home, move across the country to have your brain picked for maybe a year then find yourself out on the street. Or work your can off to really build a company up, only to have them sell it and again find yourself out on the street. Screw working for somebody else, they claim it's business, but just a nice word to screw you, royally. That is why I set up my own consulting firm. Screw working for somebody else. Besides, I have the most wonderful boss in the world, me.

[Craneman 2]

The choice is yours.

Get the training to make yourself marketable.

Go where the job market is.

Or, sit and moan and wait for the Goernment Cheese.

Yeah sure, sell your home, move across the country to have your brain picked for maybe a year then find yourself out on the street. Or work your can off to really build a company up, only to have them sell it and again find yourself out on the street. Screw working for somebody else, they claim it's business, but just a nice word to screw you, royally. That is why I set up my own consulting firm. Screw working for somebody else. Besides, I have the most wonderful boss in the world, me.

[NickD 203]

The choice is yours.

Get the training to make yourself marketable.

Go where the job market is.

Or, sit and moan and wait for the Goernment Cheese.

Who's moaning, and what's wrong with getting government (I can spell government) cheese? Been paying huge taxes all my life with nothing to show for it. About time I get some of it back.

EPA 608/609 certified, electrician license, FCC licensed, FAA certified, ASE certified, experience ASIC designer, degreed engineer with 22 patents under his belt, can find something to do. Ha, at times, too much.

But like your idea about cross training, clinic is looking for a brain surgeon and will check to see if I can go to night school for a couple of weeks so I would qualify for that job.

But what about people that don't have any skills at all, should have thought about that.