By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — As part of Wednesday's Reno County Community Outlook Conference, Chamber CEO Debra Teufel is going to provide some statistics from a business conditions survey they conducted in January.
"One of the questions that we asked of our businesses is, what are your sales doing for the last two years?," Teufel said. "Have they been increasing, stable or declining? A majority were increasing, which is wonderful. As a result of that, because business is increasing across the community, many, many businesses are hiring."
So, how many jobs are out there? More than some might think.
"Of the survey respondents, there were only four that said they would not add any jobs," Teufel said. "The great majority said they would add between one and five. There were some real surprises on there, companies that said, if they could find the workforce, they would add 30 to 50 positions. That, right there, is the story that we need to continue to work on some of the deficiencies in the community around getting a workforce trained up."
It's not that there aren't great partners to do the training, it's convincing people, especially young people, that they should be looking at a career path when they are really young.
"We need more willing participants in some of those programs," Teufel said. "We need to get young people encouraged about the job market and get them trained up earlier. Some of the things that we're working on with community partners in economic development is getting younger people in the community exposed to those great jobs. Then, we also asked some questions about their outlook on the quality of the workforce. The majority said that they would rank their existing workforce in this community as good to excellent."
Over 50% of those that are trying to hire right now are finding out that the workforce that is applying is lacking some advanced skills, but 67% said that applicants are lacking basic soft skills like showing up on time and following through if a job is offered.