Connecticut companies are looking for new workers, but not finding them. That’s the result of a survey by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA). According to CBIA economist Peter Gioa, part of the problem is a mismatch between what employers need and what Connecticut workers have to offer.
Forty-eight percent of businesses surveyed said they couldn’t find qualified workers to fill their growing number of vacant positions. Gioa says, “Those included truck drivers, sales staff, chemists, tool makers, supervisors, butchers, veterinary assistants, estimators, customer service staff, welders, foremen, engineers, and machinists.”
And “That’s a real problem. That’s almost of a crisis proportion. When we have good paying jobs that are out there, yet we don’t have an adequate plan to get these people on-the-job training, to get them the skills that they need.”
Right now, the state’s unemployment rate is 4.1 percent. But Gioa says the problem isn’t just a tight labor market, it’s that local schools aren’t training the type of industrial workforce that Connecticut needs.
“Manufacturing, even during the height of the recession was finding it difficult to find people. And then you get a pickup in those industries, it creates real problems.”
Gioa says since the recession, Connecticut has only added 76 percent of the jobs lost. Meanwhile, the U.S. has added back 160 percent.
