On the calm job horizon lurks the perfect storm
Intelligencer Journal, June 18, 2002 .

By Jeff Hawkes
Intelligencer Journal Staff

Ira Wolfe has seen the future, and it`s not a place where you want to spend a lot of time.

He`s predicting a calamity of sorts, but is has nothing to do with bio-terrorists, melting ice caps or Hillary Rodham Clinton running for president.

It does have to do with too much work and too few workers.

There`s nothing new about labor shortages in such fields as nursing and computer programming.

And, certainly, demographers have known since probably the second Eisenhower administration that the retirement needs of the baby boomers were going to impose a burden on their children and grandchildren.

But Wolfe thinks we`re in for a harder time in industries across the board than has been generally supposed.

Let me offer a caveat. Wolfe is not an expert on population and labor statistics, but a Leola-based consultant who helps employers recruit and retain workers. Any pronouncement he makes about the nation`s shrinking labor pool is probably not going to be bad for his business.

Nevertheless, we`d be foolish to disregard the sobering trends that Wolfe has spotlighted and to which he has pinned a nifty label: The Perfect Labor Storm.

Storm Alert

Sebastian Junger`s book" The Perfect Storm" and the subsequent movie described what happened in October 1991 when the remnants of Hurricane Grace combined with two other weather systems to produce a monster storm that wreaked havoc from Nova Scotia to Puerto Rico.

Likewise, Wolfe says, avariety of powerful demographic forces that were set in motion years ago and are poised to merge and intensify in coming decades will create a nationwide manpower crisis that will be a test for businesses and consumers alike.

" Ira`s absolutely right," Scott Sheely, executive director of the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board, told me. "The numbers of people we`re going to need in pure numbers, let alone in skilled areas, is staggering."

The biggest challenge is replacing retiring baby boomers at the same time birth rates are falling and the global economy is creating more and more jobs. In recent decades, women flooding the work force kept up with the pace of job creation. But now, three of four women between the ages of 20 and 54 are working. The pool of potential women workers has become smaller and smaller.

Another piece of the perfect storm is longevity of retirees. In 1990, only 3 percent of the population lived to be 85 or older. By 2030, the percentage will have almost tripled, to 8.8 percent. Those seniors will need health care, housing and other labor-intensive services.

Retention push

"I don`t think there`s any doubt that the demographics point toward problems that aren`t going to go away," said Tom Myers, personnel director for Lancaster County, which employs 1,950 people.

As a result, he said, "we have worked harder in the last few years to hang on to people."

At Lancaster General Hospital, the county`s largest employer with 3,900 full and part-time workers, efforts are made to keep workers happy and to train new employees, said Mary Miskey, assistant vice president of human resources.

The Workforce Investment Board is targeting five key industries, such as health care, construction and communications, for special training efforts. Even so, Sheely said, "eventually, we will run out of people."

I watched "The Jetsons" as a kid. I thought the future promised robots that cooked dinner and walked Astro. Certainly, technology is reducing the need for assembly line workers, bank tellers and even supermarket clerks, but according to Wolfe, the perfect labor storm still will require human beings to work longer and harder. Retirement will come later.

Business also will make greater use of immigrants, the disabled and even the incarcerated. But for the most part, consumers can expect less-experienced assistance and longer waits for goods and services.

That`s because too many employers aren`t preparing for the storm or are hoping someone will fix a problem that Wolfe calls unfixable.

"The storm is coming," he said, "and we can`t change the weather. Batten down the hatches."