A roundtable discussion this week with Congressman Phil Roe by manufacturers, infrastructure builders, and business leaders revealed that the district faces daunting challenges.
Leaders expressed concern about the region’s up and coming workforce — too few applicants can pass a drug test, the lack of highly trained, skilled workers, and the lack of “soft skills” among high school employees that are needed for employment, namely punctuality and regular attendance.
Manufacturers said their aging workforce is becoming harder to replace, hinting at potential employee shortages and operational problems in the future.
Generally, the region is becoming more culturally diverse, older, better educated and better paid. More people are leaving our area than are moving here. Job openings are outpacing new hires.
Recent statistics show that Tennesseeans and residents of the Northeast Tennessee region are hard at work, with the state’s unemployment rate at a historic low. Everyone in the state who wants to work is working. True, many of the jobs are service jobs that do not traditionally pay the highest wages, and this also presents a challenge.
Thus, many challenges exist for the area — developing its workforce from within, to attract living wage jobs, and how to deal with the burgeoning growth of its older population as people live longer and gravitate from rural areas to the city where retirement and medical services are readily available. Those older residents will be needed to supplant the local workforce to offset the predicted decline in prime age workers over the next decade.
When record-low unemployment rates collide with record-high drug use in the workforce, companies can find themselves at a dangerous crossroads. Throw in the fact that 43 states now have some sort of legalized marijuana (33 for medical use and 10 for recreational use), the work of human resource directors gets even dicier.
It’s not that local workers lack the skills for an industrialized workforce, many of which do not even require a high school diploma but pay $15 to $25 an hour and offer full benefits. Rather, the problem is that too many applicants — nearly half, in some cases — fail a drug test.
The economic impact of drug use on the workforce is being felt across the country, and perhaps nowhere more than in this region, which is struggling to overcome decades of deindustrialization.
Indeed, the opioid epidemic and, to some extent, wider marijuana use are hitting businesses and the economy in ways that are beginning to be acknowledged by policy makers and other experts.
According to the National Safety Council, approximately 15 million employees are struggling with some sort of substance abuse issue, including alcohol, pain medication, marijuana and other drugs. While no industry is immune to drug use, some — such as retail, construction and the hospitality industry — are more prone to it than others.
Substance abuse disorders reportedly cost the economy more than $400 billion a year, which translates into employee absenteeism, increased health care expenses, lost productivity and workplace accidents and injuries, to name a few.
To address this near-crisis moment in our region’s workforce, we must approve and invest further in education, with more focus on career opportunities. We think Gov. Bill Lee is right on target on this issue and is ready to move the state and rural school districts in that direction.
We must keep and welcome more immigrants, who will be crucial in filling needed positions.
We must connect more college graduates to regional companies, while offering incentives for them to stay here.
We must do a better job of selling the Northeast Tennessee region as a place for innovation, while investing in broadband and encouraging research to make the sales pitch real.
More workers need the skills employers require. And those skills increasingly involve science, technology, engineering and math. K-12 schools, universities and technical colleges need greater financial support from the state. Yet they also must be more willing to change with the times.
Strengthening and expanding Northeast Tennessee’s workforce won’t be easy. Yet it’s essential to ensuring a prosperous future.