Visit Southeast Idaho

By Sarah Glenn/For the Journal

Each new school year, Dr. Jennifer Hackwith looks into 30 new faces and sees anticipation, excitement and, maybe, a little fear. As Idaho State University’s Accelerated Nursing Program Coordinator, Hackwith oversees these students as they jump into Idaho’s only fast track nursing degree program. In a little more than a year, these 30 people will be stepping up to the front lines of health care and filling a widening workforce chasm.

“There is an incredible need for this, for quality nursing education,” Hackwith said.

In Bannock County, throughout the past 120 days, registered nurses top the list of the Department of Labor’s “Hard to Fill” jobs. Across the state, health care jobs account for 24.3 percent of hard-to-fill occupations and included physicians, surgeons, psychiatrists, occupational and physical therapists and support positions.

By volume, registered nurses and truck drivers consistently maintain the first and
second spots for the largest number of hard-to-fill jobs.

“We need to not only replenish the supply, but also increase the level of professionalism
and continued learning,” said Hackwith, who is also a doctor of nursing practice, an advanced practice nurse and a clinical assistant professor at ISU.

A dwindling supply of highly educated nurses is only part of Idaho’s workforce problem. The Idaho Department of Labor keeps extensive lists of all the jobs companies can’t seem to fill. While nurses top the list in Bannock County, other industries across Idaho are struggling to find and retain talent, too — a problem that strikes the very heart of Idaho’s economic development engine.

“Idaho businesses are champing at the bit to grow, but they’re being held up by a shortage of workers with the education and training to do the increasingly technical jobs that are the
mainstay of the modern workplace,” Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said. “We can and must do better. That means exploring best practices from the perspectives of those who sign the
checks and are on the front lines of meeting industry’s employment needs.”

Otter’s concern prompted the creation of a new task force. The 17-member group is charged with studying ways to improve Idaho’s funding and delivery of training programs to
meet growing employer demand for skilled workers.

“Everybody on the committee thinks that this is an issue that really needs to be taken
seriously,” said David Hill, who co-chairs the task force. “We know that wherever you
are in the world, workforce is the key issue to economic development. You want industry
to come here, but they are not going to be able to come here to serve their needs if
there are not highly skilled employees. So the quality of the workforce, the availability
of the workforce, is of paramount importance for economic advancement. With
that in mind, everybody will come to the table to figure out what we can collectively
do about it and make recommendations to the state.”

A Perennial Problem

As PowerPoint slides illuminated a projection screen behind him, Chris St. Jeor attempted to sum up Idaho’s workforce situation and what it might look like in the future. During his May 2016 presentation at the Idaho Falls office of the Department of Labor, St. Jeor was a regional labor economist alarmed by a 90,000-person workforce gap he saw looming on Idaho’s horizon.

“There are some really important pitfalls we need to address,” St. Jeor said as he prepared for the presentation.

Almost one year later, these pitfalls have only become bigger.

According to the Conference Board, a Washington, D.C., think tank, there were more than 20,700 online postings for Idaho jobs in December. Of those, 4,500 were classified by department analysts as hard-to-fill; health care jobs account for 24.3 percent of those.

In Bannock County, the Department of Labor says that 247 jobs fi t the “hard-to-fill”
category between December and mid- January.
Statewide, the top hard to fill occupations by volume over the past 120 days are:
• Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers
• Registered nurses
• Retail salespersons
• Customer service representatives
• First-line supervisors of retail sales
workers
• First-line supervisors of food preparation
and serving workers
• Light truck or delivery services drivers
• First-line supervisors of office and
administrative support workers
• Computer user support specialists
• Maintenance and repair workers

While these are Idaho’s immediate needs, the state also has a workforce problem looming on the horizon. The department of labor projects that by 2022, Idaho’s workforce will be short at least 90,000 workers — meaning the state labor force needs to grow at a faster pace than currently projected.

“There are some really positive opportunities out there but we don’t have the ammunition to get there,” St. Jeor said. “We are not projecting that the workforce will be able to meet demand so we have to talk about what that will entail.”

Looking to the future, the Idaho Department of Labor says that Software Developers
and Computer Systems Analysts top the list of hot jobs. By 2024, the Department of
Labor estimates that Idaho will need 6,969 people in these professions — a 36.8 percent increase. Second on the list of future hot jobs are lawyers, followed by management analysts, accountants/auditors and civil engineers.

“Idaho has great people, eager to learn, adapt and grow to meet any circumstance. It’s our job — both on this Task Force and on the Board of Education — to ensure that they can acquire the expertise needed to compete in a rapidly changing economy,” said Hill, who also is a member of the State Board of Education. “Our goal is to determine how best to prioritize and allocate scarce resources toward providing more skilled workers to fill today’s jobs so we can remain competitive in an increasingly complex and competitive global economy.”

The task of the task force

For the next several months, Hill and his colleagues are going to have a lot of information thrown at them.

“The first two to three months will be listening and assembling data,” Hill said.

Most of that information will come from the Idaho Department of Labor and the State Workforce Development Council.

“We will have to hear from various governmental bodies about what they do today — from the Labor Department to the Department of Commerce, Health, etc. But most importantly we will have to listen to industry representatives,” Hill said. “The employment sectors in the state are at the mercy of hiring good people so this is a big deal for them.”

With three major universities and a smattering of technical schools and colleges across the state, Idaho has the ability to churn out an educated workforce thousands strong. But once they have that diploma in hand, do Idaho’s educated want to stay here?

“A lot of people have the intention of working in areas where they are from,” Hackwith said of the nurses in training she sees at ISU. “Because of the appeal of a 12-month program, some people move here (to Idaho) then return (to their home state) when they are finished. Others have that intent but see something they love in Idaho and choose to stay.”

While the reasons university-educated people might stay or leave Idaho are as unique as the

people themselves, data paints a pretty clear picture of who (generally) stays and who takes their talent elsewhere.

Idaho native graduates are twice as likely to work in Idaho, according to data from the Idaho Department of Labor. In fact, 77 percent of intra‐state postsecondary graduates found a job in Idaho one year removed from school and 67 percent were still employed in Idaho four years after graduation — regardless of which university they graduated from.

However, The College of Southern Idaho was the best at keeping homegrown talent around several years after graduation; almost all of its graduates who found Idaho jobs right after graduation were still employed in Idaho four years later.

Those statistics swing significantly in the other direction if the student is from out of state. Only 39 percent of inter‐state postsecondary graduates were retained and working in Idaho one year aft er graduation, and 28 percent had stayed in Idaho four years after graduation. While North Idaho College had the highest inter‐state retention rate of 62 percent, the College of Western Idaho retained a consistent 58 percent of its inter‐state students throughout the four years of analysis.

How did ISU do? About 78 percent of its graduates stayed in Idaho one year after graduation. Four years after graduation, about 66 percent of ISU’s graduates were still in the state.

“I believe you attract people (to work in Idaho) by the quality of work and the quality of life,” Hill said.

A Complicated Solution

As someone on the front lines of training for one of Idaho’s most needed jobs, Hackwith understands that the Gem State’s workforce development problems are more complex than simply training more students and getting them to stay here.

“As educators and leaders we need to be very realistic about the expectations we are setting our students up with,” Hackwith said. “If we think that a job is sorely needed and it is for everybody than it must not be too hard to get. But all areas are not for everybody. They don’t find that out until they got through very long and expensive program.”

Solving Idaho’s workforce needs is a complicated phenomenon, with solutions as unique as the state’s workforce talent.

“As we think about education for the future, what we need to be teaching is adaptability and problem-solving and thinking as opposed to a specific skill so that the future workforce can ride the changes and find themselves valued and valuable employment,” Hill said.

Hill and Hackwith agree that while Idaho’s hard-to-fill jobs might not be a good fit for everyone, critical thinking skills are always in demand.

The Workforce Development Task Force’s recommendations are expected to be finalized by July 1 for possible implementation during the 2018 Idaho Legislative Session.