An Overlooked Labor Pool
Manufacturers Have an Opportunity to Tap a Hidden Labor Pool
Less Competition for Workers in OhioSE Region
The Ohio Southeast region has a small fraction of the competition for workers seen in metro areas – even on a per capita basis. The map below shows the county with the highest number of job openings per capita in the OhioSE region still has less than half of the openings per capita compared to Ohio’s major metros.
The map lists the number of unique online job postings per 1,000 people living in each county. In some cases, the number of per capita job openings in the major metros is 10x the OhioSE region. An employer locating in the OhioSE region will experience much less competition for workers.
Opportunity to Be an Employer of Choice
The Ohio Southeast workforce of over 400,000 is commuting long distances at great personal and financial expense for decent jobs. 1 in 4 workers heads out of the region to a metro area for work. According to a study published by Stacker in August, workers in the region also lead the state in “super commutes” (90+ minutes one-way), and they lead the state in workers leaving the house before 6 am.
To put this in perspective, 4.6% of workers in Scioto County are driving to destinations like Charleston, WV for work and spending about 3.5 hours (190 miles) commuting. This commute would cost roughly $9,500/year in gasoline. Eliminating the commute alone would provide a $4.56/hour pay raise even without calculating depreciation on their vehicles. Nearly all of the top 30 counties where commuters travel 90+ minutes one-way are in southeastern Ohio.
You may be wondering – why are folks traveling such long distances work? There is a dearth of well-paying jobs close to home. In Jackson County, OH, there are 18 job online job postings per 1,000 residents in the county. In Franklin County (Columbus), there are 9x the amount of job postings per resident, and even the rural county of Fayette has nearly 4x of job postings per resident. A significant reason for the mismatch of residents and opportunities lies in the recent closures of older heavy industrial facilities such as coal-fired power plants, steel mills, and mining operations. Scioto County, for example, has 1,176 displaced workers and another 2,000 displaced workers reside in the Huntington-Ironton-Ashland MSA.
Employers willing to offer comparable jobs closer to these workers’ homes will find a ready, skilled workforce.
Learn more by contacting Mike Jacoby, Ohio Southeast Economic Development President, at mike@ohiose.com or 740-704-9977.
