Ohio must move quickly to bolster the workforce

Sixteen months ago, Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich met with Vindicator editors and writers and bemoaned the fact that more than 140,000 jobs in the private sector were unfilled because employers could not find employees to meet their needs.

Kasich, who won re-election in 2014 by a landslide and is now seeking the Republican nomination for president, assured us steps were being taken to address the problems companies are having identifying workers with the right skill sets.

One solution, especially when it comes to jobs that require specialized knowledge and experience, was to market Ohio nationally and even globally.

So, imagine our surprise when we read a story by the Columbus Dispatch that said the state recently had 240,000 job openings posted online. The piece was published on the front page of Saturday’s Vindicator.

The Dispatch article noted that while there are private-sector positions going unfilled, 255,000 Ohioans are listed as unemployed.

Thus, these questions: How many individuals are there on the unemployment rolls who simply don’t want to work? What effort is being made to match the unemployed to the jobs that need to be filled?

Here are the occupations with the most job advertisements compiled by the Dispatch based on a report from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services: truck drivers; registered nurses, retail sales; supervisors of retail-sales workers; customer-service representatives; supervisors of office and administrative-support workers; supervisors of food preparation and serving workers; maintenance and repair workers; supervisors of production and operating workers; sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing.

Some of the jobs require only a high school or GED diploma, while others might demand specific training or advanced degrees. More than 40 percent of the openings pay at least $50,000 yearly.

A spokesman for the OJFS told the Columbus newspaper that the list shows the diversity of the state’s economy and the employers who are hiring right now.

WHAT MUST BE TWEAKED?

That may well be, but the 240,000 vacancies also show that state agencies, led by JobsOhio, the private, nonprofit entity created by state law to replace the Ohio Department of Development, haven’t yet figured what needs to be tweaked in the strategy developed to help Ohio’s employers find qualified, experienced workers.

When we commented two years ago on the governor’s insistence that he is working closely with the private sector to address this important issue, we said of the national and international recruitment effort, “The goal is to persuade prospective employees outside Ohio to move into the Buckeye State. That will require a coordinated effort on the part of business, labor and government.”

We often refer to an interview we conducted with an executive of a national oil and gas drilling company during the height of the fracking boom. One of the questions we asked him was why there were so many workers from out of state involved in the shale play in this part of Ohio:

“We need people who are drug-free working at the drilling sites. It’s challenging work, even for the most experienced rigger,” he said.

The failure by many applicants to pass a drug test has been cited by others, including individuals on the local and state levels, involved in job creation and retention.

We raised the issue of drug use with Kasich, who acknowledged that he was aware of the problem and had instructed the appropriate agencies to figure out what could be done to clean up the workforce – in a manner of speaking.

But the governor was also right in pointing out that when he took office in 2011, Ohio had lost 350,000 jobs, which necessitated the implementation of unpopular but necessary initiatives to stop the downward spiral.

As a result, more than 250,000 jobs have been created since he’s been in office.

But the inability of Ohio’s employers to fill job vacancies is cause for concern.

As the Columbus Dispatch noted, many of the positions aren’t newly created as a result of the turnaround in the economy since the national recession hit in late 2008. The openings are the result of individuals retiring or simply leaving.

In other words, Ohio’s private-sector employers need people now to simply maintain the status quo in their operations.

Time is certainly of the essence, which means state government must act expeditiously to ensure that companies don’t get frustrated and consider other states as they contemplate the future.