Q&A with Keely Schneider

When we spoke in the spring, low unemployment numbers from the state didn’t seem to align with the high volume of demand you were seeing for job-training and placement services. Has that disconnect been resolved?

Well, there are a couple of things going on here. One, the labor situation has shifted so dramatically since last spring; it’s been strange for all of us. We’re not used to labor markets changing so quickly over such a short period, so dramatically. We received recent data showing that we are back to—in terms of numbers of people employed in Kansas—the peak of where we were pre-pandemic. The other part is that pre-pandemic, we had many people working several jobs, part-time, what was needed to make ends meet. Now, the opportunities are such that many are able to move into full-time jobs with benefits, replacing two or three part-time they had before. In a lot of cases, the same number of people are working, but on the vacancy side, one household is taking one full-time job, leaving a couple of others open.

What’s the impact of that trend, broadly?

What is challenging right now for businesses is their response to why there are so many vacancies, and there are a host of reasons. First, a lot of business are actually doing quite well—they are expanding, they have more vacancies because they have more work. That’s part of it. Where are the workers? At least in Kansas, they’re working. The unemployment rate is extraordinarily low, but those figures only reflect the people unemployed who are looking for work. We still have a lot of people who just aren’t looking.

Is that connected to the Great Resignation movement we’ve been hearing about lately as a national labor concern? Is it going on in the regional work force?

There’s a confluence of things here, and it’s more anecdotally than anything else. So much of this depends on the industry. We know why it is in health care. In other areas, we hear about young people in their 20s, they just don’t like this job, and say “I’m going to quit.” Well, do you have another job? “No, but I’ll just get one.” Because the labor market is so competitive for employees, in a strange way, they can kind of do that. They don’t feel this angst around not having this next job in their pocket yet.

You mentioned health care and the stresses that have driven a lot of those front-line workers out of the field. What else are you seeing in terms of industries affected?

A lot of people are fed up in other industries, like retail and grocery, where you had people working throughout the pandemic. That’s where hearing more about this resignation piece. And with Baby Boomers, there are a lot who weren’t going to retire for another year or two, but their stock is up, they don’t like working remotely, and they think “I’m just going to go ahead and retire.” We’re seeing a lot of fresh retirements contributing to the labor shortage, more than had been predicted.

Are higher wages just a result of the labor crunch, or are employers being forced to raise wages as inflation offsets?

With pay rates going up the way they have for may entry-level jobs, a lot of employers are throwing out all kinds of incentives and enhancing benefits.  Personally, I think it’s just labor, being unable to recruit people. Employers are fairly desperate now, and those that can afford to put more money into wages are doing it. Not to say those workers don’t deserve that; wages relative to inflation have been fairly flat for many years. So part of it is catching up, but their hands are being forced because there are just not people available.

Is that where you see some real differences between the haves and have-nots of the pandemic economy?

Yes, if they have to go from $12 an hour to $15, or even $18. Will that cut into margins? Sure, but a lot of companies do have margins to give. The challenge then is for those who are not doing well, or who are not in the private sector and can’t afford to bump wages to quickly—public sector, government, education and teachers, non-profits, those type sof positions, we’re seeing it now.

Other factors pressuring the work force?

We have a lot of vacancies because women are still staying out of the work force. We saw a dip in participation again in September. That seems to indicate the issue has to do with school, with the ability to have a child in before-and-after-care slots; those are hard to come by these days. Many of those were lost during the pandemic, and women still struggle to get quality child-care spots back. Whether they opted to or were forced to stay home with kids, they do have that challenge that is still a headwind.