CARIBOU — An Aroostook County economic development partnership is taking a proactive step to get businesses ready for a projected future dip in the workforce, while at the same time spearheading interest in young people to remain in The County to replace those departing workers.
The Aroostook Partnership for Progress, a regional public-private initiative that works with its partners to market Aroostook County, conduct research and coordinate efforts to influence business and government issues that impact economic growth and development, is in the midst of a two pronged project. The effort involves sending surveys to 2,800 grade nine through twelve students in The County and to several hundred businesses in the region to combat a projected 109,000 person gap between those who are potentially leaving the workforce and those who are entering it in the next six years, according to Maine Workforce Outlook 2012-2022, a report from the Maine Department of Labor Center for Workforce Research and Information.
According to Robert Dorsey, president and chief executive officer of APP, the surveys are focusing on increasing student retainment numbers and attracting them to education and careers in The County. They are also giving them information about careers, job shadowing and internship opportunities available locally.
“We want to know how many youth are coming into the workforce,” Dorsey said Monday. “And in the surveys we have sent out to the business community, we want to know how many employees they have, how many open positions they currently have, and how many employees they plan to hire in the next five years.”
Dorsey said that the Maine Workforce Outlook report was a big catalyst behind the survey. According to the report, in 2012, the number of residents age 45 to 64 in the state’s labor force of 700,000 numbered 411,000. Most of that group will be labor force “leavers,” retiring in the next six years. At the same time, 302,000 residents under age 20 will be labor force “entrants,” which is the cause of the 109,000 person gap between the two.
Lack of working-age population growth can significantly impact businesses’ abilities to attract the staff they need to meet demand for their products and services, according to the report.
“That gap between potential labor force leavers and entrants is significant,” said Dorsey. “It gets your attention. We have got to get a better handle on how many jobs will be emerging.”
Dorsey said that it will also help businesses think about the future.
“They don’t realize the employees that they will be losing in the future,” he said.
Another goal is to get youth thinking early about what kinds of careers they might want to enter and then to educate them about the businesses that are out there in Aroostook County. That will open up the dialogue about job shadowing and internship opportunities.
“Even people who have lived here for decades don’t know a lot about Smith and Wesson or Louisiana Pacific,” he said. “They don’t know about all of the jobs available in the healthcare sector up here. We are really pushing that the kids can get a cost effective education here and remain here and work and have a good career.”
