Labor shortage reported in Washington County

Several businesses in southeast Iowa are having trouble finding enough workers to fill their openings. Many of the owners have remarked that there appears to be a shortage of labor in the area.

Washington Economic Development Group Director Ed Raber said he has noticed that many sectors of Washington County?s economy remained fairly strong even during and after the 2008 recession. He said the health care sector was one sector that performed very well in the tough environment.

?The Washington Hospital, even in the depths of the recession in 2008, didn?t lay anyone off,? he said. ?That was at a time when manufacturers were slashing their employee rosters. The healthcare benefits provided by these stable jobs have been a real cushion for Washington County.?

Raber said that, while employment remains high across the country, the labor market in Washington County is an employees? market. He said it has been that way for at least a year.

The manufacturing sector was one of the sectors that was hit hard during the recession. He said that a number of local manufacturers did have to lay off workers, but that things have turned around for them in the past couple of years. He said a lot of them are looking for people with basic work skills and not necessarily specific certifications. He said employers such as Engineered Building Design and Modine Manufacturing do much of their training on the job.

?Modine likes to train their own welders,? he said. ?If you?re a welder for another company, you may have to unlearn what you did before because they will retrain you in a different way.?

Raber said he has spoken to a number of local manufacturers about the labor market, and they have similar complaints about it.

?Several employers are finding it difficult to get an adequate number of new hires who reliably go to work every day,? he said. ?That is their No. 1 complaint. That is true for employers in health care and manufacturing. It?s hard to find people who will just show up for work five days in a row at the appointed time.?

Mark DeWolf, the inventory manager at Gingrich Well and Pump, said he has noticed greater difficulty in filling his openings in the past year. He said new hires are trained on the job. He said he doesn?t understand why there seem to be few workers in the labor pool.

Jason Van DerVeer, the administrator at Sigourney Care Center, said he and nearly every healthcare provider has struggled to fill their positions for certified nursing assistants.

?There is a terrible nurse shortage and a shortage of CNAs,? he said.

Van DerVeer said the nurse shortage is true not just for Iowa but is true across the country. He said that has been the case for a number of years. However, he said his business is now also finding it harder to fill positions that don?t require prior training or certification such as people to clean the laundry or perform house-keeping tasks.

Marty Wills, administrator of All-American Care in Washington, agreed with Van DerVeer that the shortage of CNAs is nation-wide. One change he notices is that more positions require CNA certification than in the past. He said that becoming a CNA requires more hours than it did in the past, too.