Workforce 2000

By: Kathleen McNamara

There's no doubt about it. Ask almost any employer in Southwest Florida how easy it is to find good help, and the answer comes back negative.

This problem means more than just employer frustration. Left unsolved, it could indeed spell doom to the local economy. More and more residents and tourists are packing into our area at rates far above national and even state averages. These migrants demand more goods and more services. Without workers, businesses will not be able to provide these means. Future residents and tourists, in turn, may stop coming.

The forecast, from economic consultant William Frederick: "The labor force situation, bottom line, will choke off your ability to grow."

For years, economic development groups heard the concerns of those within the workforce. But there was no quantitative way to see how grave the situation really was. "We really didn't have anything to document that," explains Lee Economic Development Director Janet Watermeier. "We needed to have research."

A year ago, the Lee Horizon Council, the private arm of the Lee Office of Economic Development, came up with a plan. The group decided to hire a professional economic consulting group to research and survey Lee County about local workforce issues. From those numbers, the group hoped to draw conclusions, and, hopefully, solutions. The cost for the study: $130,000, paid for with public funding from the Industrial Development Authority and the Southwest Florida Workforce Development Board. The Horizon Council also took some time to help with the surveys and mailing.

The Wadley-Donovan Group, a New York consulting firm known to specialize in economic development, came on board in early 1999 to conduct the study. By summer, the Collier Economic Development Council decided to get involved, hiring the firm to conduct a similar, smaller study for Collier County at a cost of $45,000.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1999, Wadley-Donovan went about the task of collecting information in both counties. The group distributed and collected surveys and reviewed available literature and data from government and private sources, including the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Enterprise Florida, the Department of Labor and Employment Security and Claritas, a demographic data forecasting company. Surveys were sent to employers, residents and educators. Response rates varied from 14 to 39 percent.

By November, economic consultant William Frederick, a point man from Wadley-Donovan, presented the results of the Lee County study to the Lee Horizon Council. Three weeks later, the Collier study was completed. Both studies were then combined and released during a first-ever event, the Regional Workforce Summit, Dec.10 at Quail West Country Club, Bonita Springs. An audience of about 300 private businesspeople, government officials and education professionals attended the event to hear the results.

Frederick's major observations seemed to shape an economy that's good for some, not as good for others living and working in the two-county region of Southwest Florida:

The regional population is growing quickly, with a good influx of working-age migrants.

Overall, population growth in both counties has outpaced Florida and US population growth within the last decade. Collier has grown at a 37.4 percent rate and Lee County has grown by a rate of 20.5 percent, while Florida has grown by only 16.7 percent and the nation has grown by 9.4 percent during the same period.

There is a large population growth by in-migration of working age and retired residents, representing 87 percent of new residents between 1990-1997 in Collier County and 99.7 percent in Lee County.

The 1999 average age in Collier (42.5 years) and Lee County (43.7 years) is undoubtedly higher than Florida (39.2 years) and national (35.7 years) averages, but Frederick observed and interesting phenomenon. The largest proportion of new migrants have been under 55 years of age. "You've got an older population," Fredreick said, "but the promise is pretty strong for a growing working-age population."

Our New Residents, 1990-1997

Age Group Collier Lee

Less than 55 years 55% 43%

55-64 years 22% 26%

Over 64 years 23% 31%

Residents seem to have it pretty good

Based on the study's findings, both counties boasted an average to high median household income in1999, $44,453 in Collier County and $36,842 in Lee County, relative to $36,238 in Florida and $40,525 nationally. Residents also have high 1999 median home values, $154.419 in Collier County and $101,97,680 in Lee County, compared to $97,807 in Florida and $105,041 nationally.

Residents appear to have relatively high educational attainment, with 38% of Collier residents and 29% of Lee residents claiming to have at least 16 years of education (or, in other words, at least 4 years of college). The biggest group with this education, however, is residents 65 years of age and older, making up 50 percent of those with college degrees in Collier County and 30 percent in Lee County.

The employment distribution generally follows state patterns within the two counties. Most survey respondents also listed their occupation as white collar or medical related.

Employment Distribution

Industry Sector Collier Lee Florida

Agriculture 9% 2.5% 2.4%

Construction 10.4% 8.1% 5.2%

Manufacturing 2.9% 4.6% 7.7%

Transportation, public utilities 2.7% 4.6% 4.9%

Wholesale trade 2.8% 3.4% 5.4%

Retail trade 23.4% 25% 20.3%

Finance, insurance, real estate 5.9% 5.8% 6.2%

Services 32.5% 29.1% 32.8%

Government 9.9% 16.5% 14.4%

Top Survey Results Occupations

Job Collier Lee

Executive 11% 6%

Construction 8% 7%

Medical Prof. 7% 9%

Fire 7% 8%

Retail sales 7% 6%

Non-retail sales 6% 4%

Clerical/Admin. 6% 12%

Education 5% 6%

Medical tech/support 4% 7%

Government 3% 6%

Workers may not have it quite so good

The flip side of Collier's high property values is prohibitive costs for some workers looking to buy a home. In Collier County, especially, the ratio of housing to median income rates a high 3.5, compared to 2.8 in Lee County , 2.7 in Florida and 2.6 in the nation as a whole. With the average cost for a new home at $252,328, it's not hard to see why approximately 14 percent of Collier workers chose to live in Lee County, where the average price is $113,000.

"Yes, they can get an apartment at affordable prices," Frederick said of Collier employees, "but to buy a house, they're going to have difficulties."

Employee wages are also below state and national norms. Reported 1997 local average wages, $25,844 in Collier County and $24,152 in Lee County, fall below the state average of $26,707 in the same year.

Representative Wages, 1999

Collier Lee

General office clerk $8.80 $8.00

Customer service representative $11.00 $8.60

Clerical workers with advances computer skills $10.41 $9.13

Accounting clerks $10.53 $9.00

Secretaries/administrative assistants $10.15 $9.57

Frederick also described employee benefits as "modest" in most companies. Although 84 percent of Collier employer respondents and 74 percent of Lee employer respondents offered basic company-paid health care, many did not offer benefits including 401 k plans, flexible hours, daycare referrals and tuition reimbursement.

Benefits

Collier Lee

Health insurance 84% 74%

Life insurance 64% 65%

401k 59% 51%

Tuition reimbursement 51%

Dental coverage, long and short term disability

There are labor shortages across the skill spectrum

Of the several dozen employment categories considered for the study, only 12 percent received rankings of "adequate" for the ability to find skilled workers.

Available Workers

Collier Lee

Total positions with sufficient data 60 87

Adequate or better 7 11

Marginally available 13 12

Difficult to recruit 29 54

Unavailable 11 10

Labor demand, in the meanwhile, is on the rise, with 5,500 new Collier jobs and 6,700 new Lee jobs created between 1997-1998. Unemployment in Lee County has dropped from 5.9 percent in 1993 to 3 percent in 1998. In Collier County, the numbers have dropped from 8.4 percent in 1993 to 4.2 percent. That's compared to a Florida decrease from 7.1 percent to 4.3 percent and a national decrease from 6.9 percent to 4.6 percent in the same period.

Unemployment Rates, 1993 and 1998

Collier Lee Florida US

1993 8.4% 5.9% 7.1% 6.9%

1998 4.2% 3% 4.3% 4.6%

Worker Dearth: Not Just a Regional Phenomenon

Think that Southwest Florida has some labor problems? Well, according to demographic analyst Richard Judy, Ph.D., president of Hudson Analytics and author of Worker Deaths: Prospering in an Age of Labor Market Strategies, the region isn't the only place suffering from employee shortages. It's a national problem, too.

During the Dec. 10 Regional Workforce Summit, Judy offered some global economic reasons for the current labor situation. The news wasn't particularly promising. In the early 21^st Century, he predicted, the nation will experience tighter labor markets and a wider gap between skilled and unskilled laborers.

Why? Judy pointed to the world's demographic changes. About 90 percent of global population growth is expected to come from developing countries, he said, whereas the United States, Western Europe and developed Asian counties will experience declining rates of population growth. Because of this unbalanced growth, the largest number of workers will be unskilled. That puts a premium on skilled labor.

In the United States, the bulk of baby boomers will retire and leave the workforce, meaning vast numbers of vacancies. The next generation, "Generation Xers" and their successors, the "Echo generation" or "boomlettes," won't fill all those jobs. There simply aren't enough workers in these age groups.

Judy also pointed out the nation's educational problems. U.S. students, especially at the middle and high-school levels, lag behind other those of other countries in math and science. And the country's schools, of all grade levels, have yet to come close to meeting national educational goals set during the Bush Administration (more results can be seen on the website for The National Education Goals Report, Building a Nation of Learners, 1999, www.negp.gov).

Judy also said that the U.S. has had a recent downward shift in the number of computer science graduates, despite the fact that jobs in this field continue to grow in demand and salary. A scary statistic: Sixty percent of new jobs in the early 21^st Century will require skills possessed by only 20 percent of the present-day workforce.

Another phenomenon, Judy said, will be an influx of Hispanic workers into the U.S. labor force, rapidly becoming the nation's new largest minority group. Between 1998 and 2008, Hispanic workers will compromise 32 percent of those entering the labor force, whereas African American worker will compromise only about 13 percent of this group.