As we heard from economists Loren Scott and Jim Richardson in their local economic forecast released last week, the Baton Rouge metro area is expected to add about 9,000 jobs over the next two years.
A lot of those new jobs will need to be filled by skilled laborers in the industrial and manufacturing sectors, Scott says. And according to a new study released by Boston Consulting Group, that poses a big problem for Baton Rouge.
The study lists Baton Rouge as one of just five of the 50 largest manufacturing metros seeing “a major shortage” in skilled workers. The other four metros in the group are Miami; San Antonio; Charlotte, N.C.; and Wichita, Kan.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” says Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance Executive Director Connie Fabre, who had not yet seen the study as of this morning. “It’s a big concern of ours. We’re going into what we believe to be a big growth spurt in investment, and we don’t want it to pass Louisiana by.”
A shortage of skilled manufacturing workers has been blamed for helping push up unemployment across America. But the study from the Boston Consulting Group says the shortage is far smaller than believed in most areas. U.S. manufacturers could use an additional 80,000 to 100,000 highly skilled employees—less than 1% of all factory workers and less than 8% of highly skilled workers, the study says. Workers in highest demand are welders, machinists and mechanics. But that’s far less than the deficit of 600,000 skilled workers cited in a survey last summer by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute.
“It’s a major challenge facing us here in Baton Rouge, and it’s also a big problem in the Lake Charles area, where they have a huge expected demand for skilled laborers. These folks are very, very concerned about being able to fill those jobs,” Scott says. “It’s not uncommon for industries here to do these kind of surveys and say, ‘Holy cow, everybody is going to have to get together and coordinate because we’re going to come up against some really serious problems when it comes to labor shortage.’ ”
Fabre says GBRIA is working on a set of recommendations to get the Capital Region prepared for the industrial and manufacturing job growth that’s expected. She says they’ll be released soon.
“We’re trying to get some more resources at the state level to prepare for the jobs that are coming. That will require more workforce training programs and that sort of thing, but we’re also trying to get some funds together for a marketing effort to let people know these jobs are out there and they can be trained for them,” she says.
Read the full story about the survey here. Watch a video of Scott delivering the economic forecast at Business Report‘s Top 100 Luncheon last week here.
