State needs workers in 'summer of jobs'

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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From the viewpoint of an unemployed or underemployed worker, Minnesota's economy is the best kind to have: There are more than two vacant positions for every worker who lacks a job.

From the perspective of an employer, the job market is so tight that it's tough to keep enough staff on the payroll. That cuts into productivity and profits.

And from the vantage of a state official — say, Commissioner Steve Grove of the Department of Employment and Economic Development — the situation requires an effort to "connect dots." That's the object of DEED's current "Summer of Jobs" campaign. It's a chance to introduce potential workers to opportunities they may not have considered, and to help employers locate reservoirs of talent they may have overlooked.

Speaking with an editorial writer by phone Tuesday from Duluth, where he had just shadowed a surgical assistant and was about to join a roundtable on bringing retired workers back into the workforce, Grove described the challenge Minnesota must meet.

"We face the largest number of job vacancies in Minnesota in the history of our state," he said, with "214,000 job openings. We have the fifth-tightest labor market of any state in the country.

"So you've got a unique and somewhat weird situation in our economy, where you've got the lowest unemployment rate ever, but not enough workers to fill the jobs that are open. And the truth of the matter is there are a lot of opportunities in the market right now, and frankly a lot of inefficiencies in the market. There are a lot of pools of labor that employers don't think to look at, and there are lots of jobs that job seekers aren't aware of."

For example, workers with a prison record might not think that the health care industry is open to employing them, but the Essentia hospital Grove had just visited in Duluth is increasingly looking at such "second-chance workers." And some employers may balk at hiring a formerly retired older worker, but such employees might bring a wealth of advantages to the business.

And retirees may be available in considerable numbers. Grove estimated that 60,000 Minnesota workers retired earlier than expected because of the pandemic. The wave of COVID-related early retirements hit Minnesota harder than elsewhere because the state had a higher percentage of older employees in its workforce.

"A lot of those folks are coming back, but I think there's a certain ageism in Minnesota's economy, where employers might not want to look at an older worker," Grove said. "Or hiring managers might think an older worker 'might not be the right fit for me.' And that kind of perspective is something we're trying to dispel today. The fact is, older workers bring great experience to the job market, they bring a perspective. They oftentimes bring a sense of value and consistency to the work."

It makes sense to reach out to retirees. A healthy economy can't sustain a super-tight job market forever. "At the end of the day, you can only increase the productivity of your economy by adding more workers to do additional jobs, or by automating," Grove said. "I think we've dispelled the myth that robots are coming to take our jobs.

"When you have demand for your product or service, but you don't have the workers to deliver, you can't increase your productivity. You can't grow your economy, and you get artificially held back. And that's a huge challenge for Minnesota in the coming decades. We've got to have employers looking in new places for workers. And older workers are one of those sets."

The "Summer of Jobs" campaign brings a welcome, light touch to a serious economic challenge for Minnesota. But workers who've been content to linger on the sidelines should take note: High inflation, the downturn in the stock market, and the possibility of a recession could cause the glut of open positions to dry up. It might be a good idea to take advantage of the summer of jobs before it becomes a winter of something else.