By Juan Montoya
WORTHINGTON, Minn. - Ivan Saenz is outside the equation.
Saenz, originally from Matamoros, lives in Worthington, in southwest Minnesota, but works in a meat-processing plant in nearby northwest Iowa.
At 35, this now-Brownsville resident is one of many Hispanics who has trekked to the Midwest from South 
Texas and northern Mexico in search of work.
Texas and northern Mexico in search of work. And although he doubts he will retire from his job, so far he has been here five years, and has all the accouterments of the average 35-year old: a car, a nice apartment, furniture, and a growing number of friends.
“I really never thought of coming here to stay,” he said recently. “But I’ve found a job that pays me more than I’ll ever be paid in Texas for the same work, and I’m getting used to the cold weather, too.”
As southwest Minnesota prepares to enter the 21st Century, it is looking to its workforce to maintain a dynamic economic development environment. But the demographics projected for the coming years has state officials worried that an aging population will adversely impact the future growth of the entire region.
Recent workforce estimates indicate that southwest Minnesota’s aging population - or the rest of the upper Midwest for that matter - has already surpassed the projected average age of the rest of the country and state in the number of workers over 65.
“Studies indicate that the population over 65 years in the United States is 12.6 percent,” said Kevin Honetschlager, field office manager for the Worthington Workforce Center. “It is expected to reach 20 percent by the year 2030. Southwest Minnesota is already at that stage even before we get to the projected date.”
In a recent issue of the Minnesota Employment Review, analyst Cameron Macht said that the aging population of the area indicates that a gap exists between the number of people available and willing to enter the labor force and the number of people leaving the labor force.
With the high percentage of older workers in the population, and the coming appearance of the baby boomers among the 60-and-over categories, this is a trend that is likely to continue, said Dave Senf, of the Minnesota Economic Security Commission.
“There is a bubble of the population that is going to hit retirement age in the next 15 to 20 years,” he said. “If we have a worker shortage now, we’ll have a real problem then.”
Many industries have had to go out of state to recruit younger workers, in many cases, Hispanics. Increasingly, it is people like Saenz - and their children - who have filled the void between workers entering the labor market and those retiring.
Local meat processing industries like Swift & Co., in Worthington, and PM Windom, in nearby Windom, Minn., have recruited heavily in the Rio Grande Valley and in northern Mexico.
That recruitment brought droves of workers to the area. In the Worthington School District, the numbers of minority children has allowed the district not to consolidating with other districts nearby.
“The bodies generate federal revenue,” said former school superintendent John Widvey. “When you have less bodies, you have less money.”
School enrollments in places like Worthington indicate that while minorities make up less than 24 percent of the 12th graders and only 24 percent of the 11th graders, they make up 53 percent of the kindergartners, and 54 percent of the first graders.
“Worthington has a much higher percentage population of minorities, young minorities,” Honetschlager said. “This makes the workforce a valuable asset. The challenge is to diversify the economy so we can retain that group.”
“Changes are happening,” Widvey said. “You can’t choose to stick your head in the sand. I wish my kids would have been able to attend Worthington schools. Worthington is a microcosm of the United States. When my parents came, they were part of the Norwegian immigrants of the 1880s,” Widvey said. “These are the new immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and before that from Laos.”
For Saenz, who came to the area to increase his economic opportunities, these statistics probably don’t mean much, although he thinks they are important.
“I feel good when I can go to the store and buy groceries that I’m used to eating in the Valley,” he said. “On some days I can walk down the main street here and hear Spanish along with Laotian, Ethiopian and Guatemalan dialects. As long as there’s work, I might stay here for a while."
1 comment:
When you use the phrase "labor shortage" or "skills shortage" you're speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually mean to say is: "There is a labor shortage at the salary level I'm willing to pay." That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence and the intellectually honest statement.
Some people speak about shortages as though they represent some absolute, readily identifiable lack of desirable services. Price is rarely accorded its proper importance in their discussion.
If you start raising wages and improving working conditions, and continue doing so, you'll solve your shortage and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.
If you think there's going to be a shortage caused by employees retiring out of the workforce: Guess again: With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, most people entering retirement age are working well into their sunset years. So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.
Okay, fine. Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, the solution is higher wages and improved benefits. People will self-fund their re-education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state. The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to self-fund their own career re-education.
There is never enough of any good or service to satisfy all wants or desires. A buyer, or employer, must give up something to get something. They must pay the market price and forego whatever else he could have for the same price. The forces of supply and demand determine these prices -- and the price of a skilled workman is no exception. The buyer can take it or leave it. However, those who choose to leave it (because of lack of funds or personal preference) must not cry shortage. The good is available at the market price. All goods and services are scarce, but scarcity and shortages are by no means synonymous. Scarcity is a regrettable and unavoidable fact.
Shortages are purely a function of price. The only way in which a shortage has existed, or ever will exist, is in cases where the "going price" has been held below the market-clearing price.
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