On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the impact of continued low unemployment rates across northwest Kansas.
Transcript:
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James Bell
Low unemployment rates across Northwestern Kansas continue to be a significant factor in area economies from Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams stops by to talk about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
workforce, it's probably our primary challenge that we face, because of the low numbers. Any business that wants to come here or wants to grow, or even continuing to operate struggling, finding employees?
James Bell
Yeah, and this has been, since I think, you know, we came back from the pandemic, we've seen these low numbers continue. But even before that, that the situation the unemployment numbers here, the rates were still under what we'd really like to see Weren't they
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
they were with or any number of years, and well, before the pandemic, all right, levels were below 3%, which is kind of when you have 3%, unemployment, the experts, that's that's low. You don't ever want anything less than that. Our number in May was 1.7. The month before that was 1.3%. And so very, very low numbers. And they were a little lower now than they were pre pandemic, but not appreciably.
James Bell
So I guess my first question is, what's causing it the follow up? How do we fix it? Well,
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
two great questions. And I wish I had the answers. It reminds me of a quote I heard the other day. Guy says, For every complex problem, there is a solution that is clear, simple and wrong. And that's what we see so much of today, I guess. I call it political speak. Everybody's got this easy answer. They say that, Oh, well, it's it's because the government gave out all this money. And people are sitting home and drawing all this money from the government. But that that's simply not what we see locally at all. It's a combination of things. So I think it's the pandemic did cause lots of people to say, Well, now's maybe a good time to retire. So we lost a lot of people out of the workforce to retirement more than normal. In our local situation, you know, we have 40, students have always provided a percentage of our workforce, the on campus students. And since the pandemic and even a little bit before, we've had a steady decline in on campus enrollment, so fewer kids on campus, and so fewer kids to work, because in spite of what many people think most students do work in one job or another. Childcare is a is a significant issue. We don't have enough childcare in our community. We've talked about that before. And I know you and Sarah watching her talk about that. And, and they they did a survey and they identified I believe 180 or something like that people who indicated if they had affordable and readily available childcare, they would reenter the workforce, or they would enter the workforce. So that's a challenge that we have. Our our lack of housing has caused us to not be able to have people move here, which could potentially enter the workforce. And, you know, when you take all that, and take the fact that now, the many workers who were doing maybe a primary level job or something like that have had opportunities to move up, it leaves a lot of openings in entry level jobs. And so as as the quote I gave said, this is complex, and there are no easy and simple solutions to it. It's multifaceted, and we have to kind of address all of them as best we can.
James Bell
Yeah, and it sounds like to me, you know, all these things you mentioned, the Sarah and the childcare Task Force. You know, we've talked about the housing quite a bit here, you know, all of these problems, I think, are on the radar and kind of everybody's working on the individual aspects of it to move that forward and kind of fix up the road
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
that we are there's there's a lot of people working in a lot of these areas. The challenge is none of these have quick and easy fixes. You know, it takes time to build housing. You don't do that overnight. It's a process of, at a minimum months and most likely years to deal with housing shortages. Same with childcare, you know, to find providers, and that's, that's a business that, you know, the business model is really broken, particularly with the wage increases that were that are occurring, and what people can charge for childcare. And at the end of the day, what people can pay for childcare, they don't match up. You know, somebody who's trying to operate a daycare center, if they've had to take their employees from whatever it is $10 $11 An hour or 214 15 $16 an hour. It was barely working before and it doesn't work at that. So that's a challenge. So lots of lots of challenges. Are all of them taking a fair amount of time to resolve? You know, we'd love to get more students on campus. But that isn't quickly resolved either. So it's just going to take some time to work through some of this.
James Bell
You know, I wonder if you want to speak to you in not so much maybe in Hays, but in kind of the greater Northwest Kansas region, the average age seems to be going up as well. And I think that's you mentioned, you know, pandemic, a lot of folks, they took that opportunity to go ahead and move out of the workforce retire, and, and they're not going to come back. But I wonder how much that plays into it and, and what we can do to help bring in that younger workforce that can, you know, contribute 20 3040 years still into the economic pool? Well, we
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
certainly have an aging population in Northwest Kansas, not quite as much in Ellis County, but in Northwest Kansas, we absolutely do. And yes, those people are leaving the workforce there, in some cases, leaving the area. And so we have to address that part of how we hope to address that is provide some retiree friendly type housing, that would cause them to move here and have Hayes as a potential destination. But that doesn't help the rural areas out in Northwest Kansas. And you know that one of the things I was going to mention on the unemployment rates, I've had people tell me, well, we you know, we just need people to, to drive into Hayes to work, lots of people do. But the unemployment rates in other areas in Northwest Kansas are just as low as they are here. And so it's not like there's a workforce out there someplace close, that's just waiting to go to work and wants to drive in. And then if you look at the cost of transportation today, you're not going to drive from 60 miles away, to take a nine or $10 an hour job, that doesn't make any sense, economically. And that's the same situation with childcare, you can't go to work for $10 An hour and pay $210 A week or $200 a week or whatever it is to have your child looked after, it just makes more sense to stay home. So more and more families, I think, have made that choice that one of us will stay home. And we'll just have to sacrifice some things. But we can't afford any other way. So it's not an easy situation.
James Bell
You know, one of the other things that you've talked about with us here on the show is the number of the opportunity, I guess I should say that we have here in Hays and Ellis County with remote work, people can now choose in a lot of ways wherever they want to live and still do their job. How much do you think impact is that having on the local economy, people that have found, you know, I don't want to say better. But maybe the higher paying jobs are something that works better with their schedule online, and are just not in the local workforce, because of
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
that absolutely has made a difference. And we benefit from that some to from the standpoint that some people are relocating here that work remotely. But it doesn't really help our job force, you know, our workforce. They're here, they're spending money, they're buying houses, they're buying cars, groceries, but they're not a part of our actual workforce locally. So yes, there are people who have, in addition to who have left the workforce because of retirement, they have left the workforce because of opportunities that exist to work remotely for companies that that they don't have to go into the office every day. So again, another another contributing factor to this hugely complex problem.
James Bell
You know, and the other thing that I wonder about this is, is is there a way that we can spend our way out of this, you know, can I've spoken to a number of especially restaurant owners and managers in the area that have had the by default had to raise those rates to do and get staff in there? Can we continue to raise that and work out of this problem? Or is that just going to in the long run make it worse?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Well, I think the the power, if you will, that has always been in the hands of the employer has shifted a great deal to the employee. And I don't know that that's going to change anytime soon. If somebody says they can't find a job right now, they're not trying very hard. There's plenty of jobs available and good jobs. Yes, some of them take some skills, if you're going to be a nurse, you don't just walk in and you're not a nurse or a health care provider, day one, but there's good jobs available. And it is going to it is going to be an ongoing challenge, particularly at the entry level. There just got to pay more. And, you know, when, when somebody can, I've seen all kinds of signs around, you know, like Walmart to somebody who wants to stock shelves and that kind of thing. $16 an hour. That makes it difficult for that restaurant owner or somebody who's traditionally hired people that if not minimum wage, someplace close to it. That's just that opportunity doesn't exist anymore. So their business model does change quite a bit.
James Bell
You know, and I think about those folks, too, that are you Maybe not, you know, a highly lucrative career. You know, I can think of several examples where money isn't the factor that people would go into the job for other reasons. But when you see numbers like that, I wonder if if people are actively disengaging, and they're saying, Well, I don't want to do my job, because I could go flip burgers for the same pay rate. Do you see any of that going on?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
I think there's some of that going on. Sure. I think, today more than ever, you know, and money as you say, money isn't always the only factor. It's never the only factor in a job, but it's a big factor. But employers are going to have to have a, a workplace where people enjoy been, and, and treat them well. And you know, the, as I say, the the power of the, the whole situation has shifted to the worker. And so they're gonna have to be treated better. And I think people who treat their employees well and give them a good work environment and a situation where people enjoy going to work are going to have a whole lot easier time attracting personnel than then people who don't. And so that has to be part of any business strategy is that we've got to figure out how we make this a good work environment and take care of these people, because they really are the greatest asset these businesses have.
James Bell
Absolutely. You know, and I wonder, too, do you see that? It's the same kind of impact, or the same thinking from the hometown, the local owned businesses and the big box retailers and restaurant chains? Or are they tackling the problems separately, or differently, I
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
think it's the same problem, I just think the larger organizations may have some advantages, because they have more resources, and can make these changes, and not have the impact, the dramatic impact that it has on a small business person. By the same token, I think most people would prefer to work for a local organization and have a little bit more flexibility, maybe a little bit better workforce, not all the the rules and those type of things that maybe sometimes come with a large organization.
James Bell
You know, in my experience, it's been about half and half as Yeah, some people really enjoy the structure of like a large chain, anything that comes from my background, everybody knows, I think I spent a good chunk of my adult years in restaurant management. And that's, that was interesting to me, because that's how I always felt, you know, like I'd much rather work for, you know, a guy, right in some major Fortune 500 company, and I've done both,
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
right, just to kind of depends on the individual, but certainly, larger organizations have more resources and can, in many cases offer better benefits and more money, in some cases, at least if they need to. Whereas the small business owner, many times, every two weeks, when they make payroll, they're they're sweating, whether they've got the cash flow this month to make payroll, and that's so if you increase your, your largest expense, which is always your people cost, when you increase that 1015 20 30% It creates some strain on the small business person.
James Bell
For sure. Uh, you know, we've got just about a minute or so Doug left, I wonder if you want to talk about before we go is there is are we getting close to a breaking point where things are gonna get worse? Or does it look like you know, in the next, man, again, I know and recognize it's not a quick solution, but things are gonna get better over the next year or two.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
You know, that's, that's a hard question to answer. They say the first step to solving a problem is admitting that there is a problem. And we definitely have done that we definitely have a lot of good people that are working on solutions. So I'm going to say it's going to get better. I'm an optimist by nature. So I believe we are going to see an easing of some of this. I think we do have a new normal, you know, the new normal is going to be that business owners have to treat employees much differently or in some cases they expect to keep up. But I think I think at the end of the day, we're gonna some of this is going to ease a little bit and find new ways to do things innovate. Overcome
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