Nothing is quite as important to a manufacturer looking for the optimum expansion site than how a community portrays its labor situation.
In an period of low unemployment -- under 4 percent in many major metropolitan areas -- companies searching for their next expansion site frequently bypass communities with low unemployment rates for fear the work force either will not be there in sufficient quantities, or that the cost of attracting the right work force in such a tight labor market will make uneconomical the cost of producing their product.
More and more, however, companies are now trying to measure the "underemployment" rate in a community to get a more accurate feel for the true labor picture.
We know intuitively that there are mechanical engineers stocking groceries at night at the local supermarket, or experienced machinists working in the neighborhood dry cleaners, or chemists with graduate degrees working at a nearby construction site, not to mention the number of liberal arts graduates working at Wendy's.
Yes, they're out there, and they're in every community. The big question is: Are they there in sufficient numbers and in the right skills to be able to make a difference to that company currently looking for an expansion site?
Three areas immediately come to mind as excellent candidates for identifying communities with potentially significant underemployment: a recent major plant closing in a community, a nearby military base, or a service sector company that has relocated its operations to another part of the country.
Just because a factory shut down, or a white collar company moved to Charlotte or Richmond, doesn't mean it was the workers' fault. More likely it was because of old facilities and obsolete equipment, or it was simply a corporate business decision.
| We know intuitively that there are mechanical engineers stocking groceries at night at the local supermarket, or experienced machinists working in the neighborhood dry cleaners, or chemists with graduate degrees working at a nearby construction site. |
If there is a military base nearby, look more closely. Where else can you find a work force that is disciplined (they'll come to work on time and stay until the job is done), goal-oriented (just tell them what you want accomplished and they'll do it), used to working as teams (their lives depend upon it), well-educated (you need a high school diploma just to get in, and most officers have graduate degrees), and have years of management and leadership experience (there's certainly not an overabundance of that these days).
University towns are notorious for underemployment.
Undergraduates represent a classic source for educated, part-time labor. These are the people who staff operations like the WordPerfect software support center, or telemarketing centers around the country ... and they come cheap.
Add to the mix the recent graduate who sticks around town for awhile, as well as the graduate students (many of whom are waiting tables) and the picture gets even better.
The only problem with all this is that underemployment is difficult to measure and statistics are hard to find. It takes a lot of research to be able to prove that it exists and, once you prove it's there, you still need to be able to quantify what specific skills that "underemployed" work force possesses.
But, heck, that's why we make the big bucks.
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