Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne county, PA -
By most economic measures, we have seen positive growth in our business fundamentals and key indicators.
We are growing in jobs, wages, attraction/retention and business diversity.
The Wyoming Valley is attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in private capital investment and creating millions of square feet of business inventory.
The investment in infrastructure has not only grown our existing legacy businesses, exemplified by the freshly minted expansions of Colours, Geisinger Health Plan and Berkshire Hathaway Guard , but with the attraction of new businesses like Chewy, Adidas, Patagonia, American Paper Bag, True Value, Ubiquity and Spreetail.
The result is an exponential growth in jobs over a wide range of skill sets advancing wages for our overall labor force. In the past 5 years we have seen our unemployment rate drop more than 6 percentage points from a high of 11 percent in 2013 to less than 4.5 percent in 2018.
Our job growth has been fueled by a broad range of businesses over a spectrum of industry segments that are drawn to the confluence of great business value propositions, an enviable “work ethic”/ labor pool and a strong family lifestyle culture. The result is that we have developed a vibrant and stable economy through a measure of diversification.
At the same time, our strengthening economy has exposed a critical need in workforce. In our recent 2018 member government affairs survey, workforce was identified as our primary challenge with close to 70% of respondents indicating that they have hired or added new positions during the past twelve months but with a growing concern on the availability and quality of the workforce.
In business, your biggest asset is your labor force. Access to a talented labor force is one of the driving influences when businesses consider expanding existing operations or establishing new ones. Areas with the right skills, talent and expertise are the ones that will win the battle for job growth and business sustainability.
The availability of skilled talent and the gap between the existing workforce and the skills businesses need are key economic challenges; further exacerbated against the backdrop of historically low unemployment rates, a baby boomer generation of skilled labor poised for retirement and an increase in new jobs entering our region.
We need to ensure we are making the investments to connect and align our people and skill sets, train up where there are gaps and attract talent from both within and the outside.
Our focus as a Chamber must be to orchestrate and incubate workforce innovation through a multi-faceted coalition of our ABCs (academia, business community) leaders and organizations. Alignment of the key inputs must focus on the following; it must be data-driven and grounded in the regional numbers, linked to education/trade certification, engaging in partnership with the business community, connecting the labor force to business, and ensuring investments are maintained and innovative funding sources are tapped.
And finally, it must be constructed on the premise that the labor/business life cycle is connected to a living, breathing business ecosystem that must be measured, nurtured and managed.
As a business community we are engaging with our educators to align the workforce needs and provide greater connection to job pathways through certification and internships.
A great example is the work being done by Luzerne County Community College (LCCC) as both a feeder system into higher education, and just as critical, to provide specialization and skill set certifications for the trades in critical occupation needs such as machinists, mechanics, CDL drivers, engineers and nurses. Another is with our WB Connect Ecosystem where we endeavor to connect our young talent pool who doesn't think they can find a match for their skill-set, with businesses that didn't know this young talent pool was available at their door step.
Today, Wilkes Barre and Northeastern PA are at a critical juncture. While there is wide agreement in our member surveys and employer round-tables that a skilled talent pool is essential for the future growth of business operations, there is also a looming concern.
And that is with low unemployment trends, baby boomer retirement, and new jobs coming into the region, we are faced with the very real potential of a net deficit in our labor pool. The need for a dynamic workforce has never been greater than it is today.
And this is not a local parochial issue; it is a regional NEPA issue that requires a collaborative partnership of our academic, business and community leaders to create a business ecosystem where NEPA talent can thrive to uplift the community and quality of life in the region.
Revitalizing workforce in Wilkes Barre and the NEPA area holds infinite potential for some economic breakthroughs and a new era of growth.
But to get there we have some heavy lifting to do.
With a region known for its strong work ethic, affordable cost of living and a large college student population to draw from, we have a great start and now need to build upon this solid base.
