Lack of skilled workers only part of Minn. jobs problem

Lakeland Mold Co.
Andrew Gunderson works on a mold for an ice chest at the Lakeland Mold Co., in Brainerd, Minn., on Wednesday, March 7, 2013. Gunderson has been with the company for less than two months. "It's a good job," he said. Lakeland employs 83 people, and company officials say they would hire five more today if they could find the skills they need.
Ann Arbor Miller for MPR

The so-called skills gap — the idea that some employers can't find workers with the right training — is more complex than many have thought, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The department released a study Thursday showing that in nursing, industrial engineering and manufacturing production in Minnesota, many employers indeed have had difficulty filling positions but often for reasons only partly attributable to lack of skilled workers.

Uncompetitive wages and undesirable locations or work shifts also contributed substantially to the problem, the study found. Researchers also suggested that electronic job applications that use key words to match applicants with jobs may not be working well and thus contributing to difficulty filling jobs.

Related: Skills gap? What skills gap?

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.

DEED focused on three occupational groups in which employers say they've struggled to find workers. Researchers interviewed about 200 Minnesota employers focusing on 1,500 job vacancies.

They found employers reported general hiring difficulty in 45 percent of those vacancies. But a lack of skills among applicants was the sole contributor to the difficulty in only a third of those cases. That represented only 15 percent of all openings.

Filling a mold
Workers at the Lakeland Mold Co., in Brainerd, Minn., fill a mold with molten aluminum on Wednesday, March 7, 2013. The resulting mold will be paired with others to create a product for a plastics company. Lakeland Mold, which employs 83 workers, expects to see an increased demand and declining supply of skilled welders and manual machinists in the future, according to human resource director Stephen Lackner.
Ann Arbor Miller for MPR

"I think the results of this survey and a lot of other studies that are coming out on this issue suggest a much broader set of challenges and a much more complex set of issues than simply this lack of qualified candidates," said Steve Hine, research director at DEED.

The study found that of the jobs requiring a high school diploma or less, nearly 60 percent were tough to fill. Those jobs are mostly in manufacturing.

One factor in that may be that many high schools have cut back on industrial technology training, Hine said.

"We have seen manufacturing jobs in Minnesota drop by 25 percent over the last couple of decades," Hine said. "In our career guidance information, we would suggest that career seekers look at areas in which we have seen or are projecting significant growth when they decide what their course of study is. So I think that manufacturing is going to have a difficult time convincing individuals that the industry is an area of opportunity."

One manufacturing company that is clamoring for workers is Lakeland Mold in Brainerd's industrial park. Workers there use high tech machines to fabricate molds for a wide range of plastic parts.

Lakeland employs 83 people, and company officials say they would hire five more today if they could find the skills they need. That's primarily computer-aided machinists or people with an aptitude for math and making things with their hands.

Human resources manager Steve Lackner says finding skilled employees is getting tougher, even though Lakeland pays a competitive wage. He thinks high schools haven't encouraged kids to go into the industrial trades.

"Somewhere in the past, and I don't know when it was, you started to look down on the trades, that was a bad place to go," Lackner said. "To be successful you have to go to college. That's not the case. There are good jobs, good wages, good livings in manufacturing. It's no longer dirty, dark and dangerous."

Stephen Lackner
Stephen Lackner, the human resource manager for the Lakeland Mold Co. in Brainerd, says finding skilled employees is getting tougher -- even though Lakeland pays a competitive wage. Here, Lackner interviews a prospective employee on Wednesday, March 7, 2013.
Ann Arbor Miller for MPR

The so-called skills gap has had the attention of officials from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system for several years.

Mary Rothchild, who oversees workforce development for MnSCU, said the agency has worked to create partnerships with employers to respond more quickly to their needs.

"What's interesting to us is that while skills gap plays a role exclusively in a very small number, perhaps, we see that 87 percent of all vacancies have either exclusively a skills gap problem, or it's a contributing factor to the difficulty that employers have in hiring for those positions," Rothchild said. "So we think we're on the right path."

MnSCU joined with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce last spring and summer to host a series of workforce assessment forums to hear the concerns of employers. Several community colleges are now building new manufacturing-related degree programs to meet some of those needs.

The DEED study is the first of its kind in the state. The agency plans to conduct the survey twice annually and is currently working on a second round of interviews for other occupations.