Chamber Amplified
Each week Doug Jenkins of the Findlay-Hancock County Chamber of Commerce talks to industry experts to help local businesses find new ideas, operate more efficiently, and adapt to ever-changing conditions.
Chamber Amplified
Workers Wanted: Understanding Findlay's Tight Labor Market
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Why are businesses still struggling to find workers when small-business confidence is improving?
Randy Galbraith of Hancock County Job & Family Services joins Chamber Amplified to break down what the local labor market actually looks like and why hiring remains such a challenge for Findlay and Hancock County employers.
Hancock County's unemployment rate sits at just 3.6%, while its overall labor force has barely grown in more than a decade. At the same time, new businesses continue to open and existing employers need more workers.
Doug and Randy discuss what's behind that mismatch, including the rising cost of transportation, the shortage and cost of childcare, workforce participation, changing employee expectations and the challenges facing employers in an extremely tight labor market.
Chamber Amplified is presented by the Findlay-Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.
Music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com
Why Workforce Still Feels Hard
Doug JenkinsHello everyone and welcome back to Chamber Amplified, brought to you by the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. I'm your host, Doug Jenkins. Each week on the podcast, we're talking about the things that matter the most to local businesses and organizations, from workforce and leadership development to marketing, IT issues, and the everyday realities of running something that serves our community. We're going right back into workforce today. We talked about it a couple of weeks ago. We're looking at it from a different angle today. My guest is Randy Galbraith. He's the director of Hancock County Job and Family Services. We'll talk about a recent NFIB report which caught my attention because one of the things it mentioned was that small business competence is improving, which is great. But there's one caveat to that. Finding workers remains one of business's biggest concerns. We've been talking about that for a while, certainly as long as we've been doing this podcast. Nationally, 36% of small businesses reported positions they can't fill, and 27% said labor quality or availability was their biggest problem. So a couple of weeks ago we had Trish of Alaska on from Raise the Bar Hancock County, and we talked about workforce from the employer talent development side. So we wanted to flip the perspective this time. What does the pool of available workers actually look like locally? Randy sits in a unique position because he sees both sides of the equation: businesses that are looking for people and people who are looking for work, and he sees the problems that both are having. One number from the conversation that jumps out is that Hancock County's labor force really hasn't grown in more than a decade, even as new businesses employers are coming into the market. Now the conversation goes beyond the easy explanation of people just don't want to work. If you've been listening to the podcast, you know that I just don't like that phrase at all. You can go back and listen to or read editorials from newspapers going back an entire century of a generation of people saying that the new generation just doesn't want to work or they don't know how to work hard. We'll get into that, but there's a reason why we address it so much here on the podcast. For some people, going to work has just become an economic calculation. Randy will talk about two particularly big barriers locally, transportation and childcare. And we're not just giving it lip service, we're really getting into the numbers of why that is such a big decision. We also get into something that doesn't really get discussed that much. Employers and employees have developed very different expectations of what available work looks like. Think about it. If you came of age prior to, say, 2015, you remember a time when jobs were scarce. I certainly remember being in college and applying for job after job after job because it didn't seem like that many people were hiring. That is not what today's college student is experiencing or somebody going directly into the workforce. So we'll talk about that. The episode not about assigning blame, it's really more about understanding why Hancock County's labor market is so tight and what it means for businesses trying to hire. So if it does feel like it's been harder than ever to find someone to fill an open position, there are some numbers behind that feeling, but the reasons are a lot more complicated than what they might seem. Remember, if you enjoy the podcast, don't forget to leave us a rating and review and share with others. Of course, we're also on YouTube, so if you really want to share the message, it's pretty easy just to share that YouTube link wherever you want to put it. Now, let's get into it.
Meet The Local Workforce Gatekeeper
Doug JenkinsJoined on Chamber Amplified now by Randy Galbraith of Ohio Job and Family Services here in Hancock County. Randy, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Doug. It's been a long time coming. I thought we had had you on the podcast already, but we haven't. So uh welcome to your rookie performance. We'll be having you back. Well, thank you again. So uh a story caught my attention uh that small businesses, their confidence had increased in July, but the thing that they still have concerns about is workforce. And interestingly enough, we just had Trisha Valasek on the podcast a couple of weeks ago to talk about the things that our employers are looking for. But I thought we'd kind of look at what the actual workforce picture looks like in Hancock County right now, especially when it pertains to our businesses still really struggling to find employers. And if they are, what are the hurdles that we're looking at? So, Randy, with that, I've teed up a ton of information. Uh wherever you want to go with that.
SpeakerWell, I uh, you know, hopefully I'm piggybacking on good information that Trisha gave you the last time you talked to her. Um, she really has a good handle on what's going on in Hancock County.
Low Unemployment And Flat Labor Force
SpeakerBut first thing, place I would start is if you're a small business uh or any business in Hancock County, you have to understand that the unemployment rate's 3.6%, and it has been a low unemployment number for really a very long time. I think it got uh close to 5% for just a few months last year, and 4.9 to 5 is what's considered to be a healthy unemployment rate. Uh, and so you're in a tight labor market. And I don't think that should surprise anyone who's out and about in Findlay. And if you go into any uh retail shop or or look in front of any business, uh there are uh help-wanted ads, uh help-wanted signs everywhere uh from our restaurants to our warehousing facilities, including right across the road from our uh facility on County Road 140. Uh they're looking for workers. So that that shouldn't be any shock. If you're if you're a business, you're probably looking for people right now. Um our labor force, when I looked at our labor force knowing that this was coming up, uh I looked in uh our numbers for 2012. We had 39,807 people uh in our civilian labor force here in Hancock County. That's you know more than 10 years ago. The latest data I have uh is from 2022, and that's 40,200 people in our civilian labor force here in Hancock County. So that's that's a less than a 400 person increase. So again, uh we have employers moving in, we have new businesses coming in, everyone has seen target going up, everyone's seeing the strip mall coming in uh behind Walgreens. Uh, you know, we have sheets here. Uh we our labor force is no bigger than it was basically 15 years ago. So that's going to make a tight labor market for our employers.
Why Zero Unemployment Is Bad
Doug JenkinsOh, Steph, let's get into some of those terms and really some of the uh how we look at some of these figures. I I think the one that a lot of times catches people off guard, and I I've been talking about workforce numbers, I don't know how long, even back to when I was doing news, is that unemployment around 5%, 4.8% is considered healthy. And I think some people are kind of taken aback by that and they think, well, shouldn't that be 0%? But that's why is it uh not that way?
SpeakerWell, it's not that way because if you're starting up a new business and we're always hoping for growth uh anywhere in the country, but if you're starting up a new business or you're you're uh say you're whirlpool and you're developing a new line, uh, you're going to need new workers. So if there are no new workers available for those kinds of expansion, those kinds of projects, uh you're you're kind of in uh, you know, it's tough. You're in a tough world. We haven't automated everything yet. So until that day comes, you're gonna need people out on those lines and behind those cash registers and behind the counters, uh, everywhere that we need people. And that's why. So you need a little bit uh of a wiggle room in employment. You need some people looking for jobs so that you know new businesses coming in, businesses are expanding, can find those people to work.
Doug JenkinsThe other thing that I think catches people off guard
The People Missing From The Numbers
Doug Jenkinsabout the unemployment number is it doesn't include people who have stopped looking for work. Uh and that can be a bit of a challenge because there are a variety of reasons why people have stopped working. Maybe they had a kid and decided they want to stay home with their kid, or maybe they have obstacles uh to the to getting to work and they've just decided to that you know there's too much of a roadblock. What are the things that you see on a day-to-day basis that cause people to just drop out of the people who are looking for work?
SpeakerWell, we've touched on a statistic that I love um called the labor participation rate, uh, which is very hard to pin down for a county. Um, but the federal if you go out to the Federal Reserve, St. Louis, I think it's the St. Louis Federal Reserve, you can find information on that. Uh yes, there are folks that have that are not counted in the unemployment rate, uh, that are of age to be in the workforce, but are not in the workforce and not looking. So those people are not counted in the unemployment number. Uh, it's a little hard, I think, to figure out exactly what that number is. Uh, but I will tell you uh as the prices or the costs increase for things, uh, people on the low end of the economic spectrum are gonna start making choices about whether uh work, what they can earn, is going to actually cover the costs of going to work. And there's two prime examples of that here in Hancock County, and that is transportation and childcare.
Transportation Costs Price People Out
SpeakerAnd I think that's where you were going. Yeah. And if I start with transportation first, uh again, you you you look out to the St. Louis Fed, um, this is where I get my numbers in Kelly Blue Book. Uh, you can get some from a Cox Automotive if anyone wants to fact-check me on these. Um, you know, you got to look at uh because Findlay does not have a routine bus transit system or public transit system, and I know there's some movement on that, but because we don't have it, then you're talking about individuals providing their own transportation for the most part. And the high month for car sales in the United States uh occurred in July 20 of 2005, we sold 1.8 million cars that month. That's used new, that's everything. And the low, this shouldn't surprise me one, was in April of 2020, that yeah, second month, that second full month of COVID, we sold less than half that number that month, 743,276 automobiles. Now, the reason that is important is because 1997 to 2007 was peak sales in the United States for new cars, or really for all cars. And since that time, since the Great Recession, uh, we've either been going down or stable on the number of cars that we sell each month. And I don't know why stats are reported monthly, but that's how they're reported. Um, that means that for a very long time, almost 20 years, we've had a decreasing in number of cars being sold. That means that's a higher pressure on the used car market in terms of cost because you're not selling as many new cars, then you're not going to have as many used cars to sell. And the people on the lower end of the income spectrum, heck, even me, I don't buy new cars. I generally buy used cars uh for the value. If you're forced to buy a used car, then the value of those used cars is going up all the time. And we can it's especially critical right now, I think, in the pickup truck market for anyone that's been out to look for pickup trucks. Um that's just a great example to look at. If the other figure that comes from Kelly Blue Book is that the um average car on the road today is older in the United States than it's ever been. Uh, it's 13 years. Was 12 last year, it's gone up a year. It's the average person is driving a 13-year-old car, which means there's some a lot older. Right. Um, you know, if you're selling, if you're selling a million cars a month, then you know there's some a lot older than that. And again, that puts pressure on the used car market because that's a second factor that is keeping cars out of the used car market. People are just hanging on to them. And it doesn't, and it makes sense because the average new vehicle purchase price is fifty thousand dollars up, and the average monthly payment for a new automobile right now is $775 a month. Now, that is just not something most people can sustain, uh, even in a uh a moderate two-income household. So getting back to my original point, it's the long way around the barn. The pressure on for on low-income families to work, especially if there's two people in the household, is is it worth the transportation cost for that second car, or is it is it more expensive than just staying one person staying home and one person working? And that's a that people are actually pretty good at math when it comes to that. And you add to that the fact that gas prices, energy prices are as high as they are right now. I think I filled up and it was $3.99 a gallon was about the cheapest I could find without a D discount uh at the end of last week. And you know, that's a real that's a real pressure on low-income families. So you you've got two factors that the cost of a car and the cost of the fuel. And I didn't throw in their maintenance costs, and we everyone should know if you have if you're looking in an older car, if that's what you can afford, then your maintenance costs are automatically higher. And fuel costs drive costs for you know tires, brakes, all of that stuff. So the cost of owning an automobile is becoming for a low-income person um out of reach. Uh, and I don't see that changing in the near future unless there's something that comes in and sort of breaks the market. And I've I've kind of given a speech like this at uh uh three-minute speech on this earlier at Fresh Print Business. But if if we don't have a Henry Ford moment, you know, where Henry Ford drove the cost of a car from $1,000 to $300 uh back in the early part of the 20th century, I I don't see individual transportation um maintaining its its supremacy in the United States. Um so we'll see. I know there's startups out there like state slate motors. Uh some people are trying to get some cheap cars onto the market. Uh, we'll see how that goes. I I'm just uh you know, I'm a car guy, so this kind of worries me. Um the other thing I I talked about that's putting pressure on people going to work is childcare, and and this is a big one.
Childcare Costs And Missing Slots
SpeakerUm you know, probably five years ago now, uh we commissioned a big study. When I say we, uh JFS, uh uh community foundation, United Way, a whole bunch of entities here in Hancock County got together and said, hey, we we're hearing post-COVID, you know, post the start of COVID, that this is a problem. It's a real problem. So what what is the problem? We pretty quickly found out that um the cost of childcare uh exceeds um the normal um person's wages here in Hancock County pretty easily, and that we didn't have enough spots, even if people could afford them. So we were we needed a thousand more uh spots, daycare spots, childcare spots in Hancock County, and we needed those spots to be way less expensive than they are. Um so that calculus is is working in in those low-income families and even moderate and medium income families. Um I've talked to people that are two income, and if they have two or three kids, they're spending you know thirty, forty thousand dollars a year on child care. And then again, it becomes the the question of if I have a job that grosses sixty thousand a year and I pay thirty thousand dollars a year or thirty-five thousand dollars a year in child care, what am I getting from for my hours at work? And can one parent staying home um with those young children pay off? Is that really more you're really getting more bang for your buck? Because again, you have to add transportation costs on top of that. So for people that employ um you know service workers or you know, the the lower end of the income spectrum, you are fighting some major economic forces in the United States to get people to work. And those are the two big ones.
Doug JenkinsYou that's
What Employers See And Miss
Doug Jenkinsuh those are two pretty big hurdles. And we can get into some of the smaller hurdles, but when it comes to addressing those hurdles, you talked a little bit about the community foundation, the studies that have been put together. Uh you have a unique position where you kind of talk to people on both sides of the equation. When you talk to area businesses, do they seem well informed on what's keeping people from going to work from them?
SpeakerI think that's a mixed bag. Um I think some of them have a pretty good handle on it, and uh, some of them are uh are, you know, we had Joe yesterday at work, and today Joe hasn't didn't come to work, and then Joe doesn't come to work for three more days, and he points out, and we never know why Joe um didn't make it into work. Uh and so I don't know that they that that there I think there are employers out there that don't really know why folks aren't showing back up. Um, you know, if you can get an exit interview in there, if you have people that routinely do exit interviews and you you can get employee employers, employees to do that, that might be helpful to inform you. But if you know, if if you're a retailer or small business, that's highly unlikely you're going to be able to get that done. Um so it really comes down to do you know why that person just never came back? Uh is it because they didn't have childcare that day, they knew they were close to pointing out, and they just said, heck, you know, these jobs are everywhere, and therefore, if I leave uh this employer tomorrow I'll have a job, or the next day I'll have a job at another employer making similar money. And I think there's some of that going on. I think it's been going on for several years now, uh, like I said, given the tight labor market. Um, but I talked to other folks that know exactly why. And I think those businesses are why the community foundation came to, you know, got us all together into a room and started discussing childcare. And I'd be remiss not to say that uh we are on the cusp of of revealing something called the tri-share model. Uh, we're still we're still working that out. We are down to really the fine details of that. So hopefully, pretty soon there's some relief on the horizon in the child care uh field for cost. And we've had some big movement uh from uh some churches, the YMCA um opening up uh HHWP as their new um you know early head start program. Uh so we've had movement on slots, and now we need some movement on cost, and hopefully this new truck share model will do that for us.
Doug JenkinsThis
Expectations Gap Between Workers And Bosses
Doug Jenkinsthis conversation when people talk about workforce and people going back to work and staying out of the workforce always seems to be one side will say one is it's an absolute on one side and it's absolute on the other. And I think when I talk to you and when I talk to Trisha, the impression I get is that it's a little bit of everything. It is that there are some big obstacles, and there's some real math being done when it comes to do if I go get this job, how much is it actually going to cost me? There's also the soft skills gap, like if you can't make it into work, knowing to call off, things like that. We've talked to Trisha about that. Uh, but the one that you just mentioned, um uh certainly we've been dealing with it since the pandemic, is people realizing, like, okay, well, if I lose this job, there is one that's pretty similar that I can just go get started, and they're gonna hire me even if I wouldn't uh even if I have some employment gaps because they just need people in the door. Uh I I think it makes for a frustrating position for everybody, not just for employers, but also for employees too, because I think by and large, a lot of people want to go back to work. But when you start adding up the things that might keep you out of it, that's a big decision to make.
SpeakerSure. I mean, it's okay, it's you're exactly right. It's not all on employers and it's it's not all on the workforce. Um, you may notice by my beard and hair that I have a few years under my belt. And I saw, you know, I came out of when I came out of college, um, it was into a tight labor market. And when I came out of law school, it was into a tight labor market, and we had uh the dot-com bust not long after that, and then we had the the housing bubble burst, and then we had the great recession. And so I saw several times in my early uh career when you held on to a job for dear life because that there was not someplace to go. Um, and I've lived in four states be uh, you know, partially because of that. Um so you you know, if you were entered the labor force in 2015, which is now you know almost 12 years ago, yeah, you've never experienced a tight labor market. Um you've never experienced or I mean a uh you know, uh a tight market for trying to find a job. You you've never experienced really a recession. I mean, we got close with the pandemic, uh, but you know, we've not seen that kind of great recession or dot-com burst or after 9-11 um hiring freezes that we, you know, I've experienced. So for that generation who now are 10 years into the workforce, they don't know what that's like. So they they when you if you're an old person like me and you're dealing with a younger generation, you have to stop calling yourself old because I'm right behind you.
Doug JenkinsYou're taking me through a walk through memory lane of my professional career as well. You gotta stop calling yourself old there because then by that just means that I'm old by transitive property.
SpeakerWell, I I mean I hire a lot of people right out of college. And and I look at them and I and I have to go ask my HR person, is you know, is that person actually graduating from college? And that those people look at me and and they say, you know, something like, What's a rotary phone? So, you know, there's a there's a There's definitely a generational gap. And it's so if I say something like, you know, you really need to pay attention and hold on to this job, um, that doesn't mean anything. Yeah. Why? They're all over the place for you know, right now for for you know some a moderate amount of money. Why, why would I hold on to that? And I see it in my own family and my wife's family when we're when we're talking to uh the younger generation of them and and their expectations from a job, which are far outweigh anything I was ever told I should expect. Um, so you have that, and then you have employers. Um you know, it's the employees don't necessarily see the rising costs on the employers. You know, if gas, if fuel trend costs are high for uh for us uh as employees, then you know they're high for your employer. You should know that. And and employer insurance costs have not gone down, they've only gone up, and and pretty much stratospherically um there's the the costs are are for to own a business are just huge these days. Yeah. Now that employee just doesn't quite see that. And so the employer and the employee are are we in an interesting relationship now where we have to explain to each other why we have the expectations we do and can we meet them. And that's pretty difficult to do if you aren't uh, you know, a kind of a boutique um employer. If you're you know, if you're Lowe's out there and you're trying to fill a store full of uh of employees, you may not have the time or or the money to invest into that kind of conversation. Um and and so we have a kind of a mismatch of expectations.
Advice, Ohio Means Jobs, And Next Steps
Doug JenkinsThat is and that kind of leads into how I wanted to wrap things up is just one piece of advice on either side of the coin on how to navigate maybe optimism for the future of small business, but again, a tight labor market. You kind of touched on what employers might be able to do or a piece of advice for employers. Is that level of communication seems important, like you said, can be challenging though.
SpeakerYes, I mean uh of course, my first first reaction is hey kid, you don't know how good you got it. And it, but that doesn't, like I said, that doesn't work with someone that's experienced 10 years of of good times. This may be the longest period of prosperity in American history. I'm not sure. I've not gone back to look about at that, but we certainly have not had that kind of reset since the Great Recession. And and these folks, you know, they don't know that kind of thing. I'm uh so it's a conversation from employers, uh, and it's a realization and should be a realization on employee parts that they're you're living in in a historical time uh that any point and now could come to an end. We're way past, as far as I'm concerned, a construct uh a constriction in the economy. Um, this is abnormal. Um so and I've been saying that for a long time, and I and I keep thinking, how long can this go on? Maybe it can go on forever. I don't know. I don't think so.
Doug JenkinsThe stats would not bear that out, right?
SpeakerYeah, if past pre is a is a good predictor of the future, then at some point in time that we will have a contracting economy for, you know, what is it four quarters? And then and you know, there's going to be some restructuring from that. Um it's and and that's that's gonna be a hard lesson for some folks to learn. I'm I'm hoping they take it into account now before it happens.
Doug JenkinsWell, Randy, I feel like I could talk to you for this uh for a very long time, but uh, we like to try and keep the podcast here at that 20 to 30 minute mark, bite-sized pieces of information. But if anybody would want to talk to you a little bit more about what you're seeing uh when it comes to workforce in the area and and uh the labor market, what's the best way to get in touch with you about that?
SpeakerWell, I come out and see us at Ohio Means Jobs. I've got uh what I've talked about today, I have experts on there uh out on County Road 140, second floor of the old county home. Uh, and that's the best way to if you want to talk to me and get a hold of me. I've got an email address. Um, that's the best way. Um, but uh I can give you that email address if you want, or if you're gonna put it somewhere attached to this.
Doug JenkinsI will put it in the show notes there.
SpeakerOkay, yeah. Um definitely. I I'm I like to talk to employers, I like to talk to groups. If you have something you would like to hear about, uh please let me know. And if I can't be there, again, I have experts on this that are way more knowledgeable than I am. Um, so again, thanks, Doug. I appreciate you having me on today.
Doug JenkinsWe appreciate you being here. We'll certainly have you back. It doesn't seem like there's ever not going to be something to talk about in this world. Absolutely.
Key Takeaways And Chamber Invitation
Doug JenkinsJust a few points as we wrap up today's podcast. That stat that I keep coming back to is Randy's comparison of Hancock County's labor force from about 10, 15 years ago to 2022, I think is what he said. The the latest stats were from 39,807 people in 2012 versus 40,200 in 2022. That is very flat. Obviously, the business community continues to grow. And I know a lot of people, well, don't bring in the employers if we don't have the workforce. And unfortunately, things just don't really work in tandem like that. It would be nice if they did, but it would be hard, you'd be hard-pressed to find an example, in history, of them working in tandem. Usually there's the jobs come in and then people kind of follow. It's almost like a lagging indicator type of deal. Low employment sounds great, and generally it is, it beats the alternative, but 3.6% unemployment creates a very difficult environment for employers trying to expand. The unemployment rate also doesn't tell the whole story because it doesn't count everyone who has left the workforce. Transportation, again, we've talked about it. We we've brought it up in a lot of different uh episodes of the podcast. We've talked about it at Fresh Brew Business, but it's not simply about having a car. You know, we all remember buying our first car, things like that, but it's the price of the car, it's what that monthly payment is, it's the insurance, it's the maintenance, it's the fuel that adds up quickly just to get to work. Child care creates the same calculation, especially for families with multiple children, and that makes workforce participation more complicated than there are jobs available, why aren't people taking them? And it's definitely an issue that we need to address. There are employee side issues too, reliability, soft skills, and expectations. They still matter. I don't think anybody's saying that they don't, but it's a combination of all of that. The labor market has also changed employees' leverage. Someone who entered the workforce around 2015 has experienced a very different job market than someone who started around the Great Recession. And again, Randy's point about the mismatch of expectations between employers and employees is probably worth reiterating and thinking about just a little bit. So again, thanks for listening for this edition of Chamber Amplified. This is a free podcast available to the community, made possible by the investment of our members at the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. And if you're looking at ways to get your business involved in the community, a lot of times the chamber is the best place to get started. If you'd like to learn more, just send me an email, djenkins at finlayhancock chamber.com, and we can talk about how an investment in the chamber not only helps your business, but the business community as a whole. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time on Chamber Amplified from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.
