Post-pandemic rebounds highlight Chamber’s economic forecast event
Leaders in employment and health care had workers on their minds Tuesday during a Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce event, saying things in their respective arenas are improving, even though difficult days remain.
“The outlook is positive; the outlook for hiring workers remains a challenge,” said Nancy Dischinat, executive director of the Workforce Board Lehigh Valley, during the chamber’s Economic Outlook 2022.
State data show the Lehigh Valley is poised to experience a 7.5% growth rate in employment by 2028, Dischinat said. But with nearly 17,000 people in Lehigh and Northampton counties listed as unemployed today — a number that excludes long-term jobless — labor officials such as Dischinat worry how to fill existing openings, let alone new positions. It’s a problem that’s been around since before the pandemic.
Dischinat also said the Workforce Board continues to look for a new generation of workers as they exit high school or college. “We have more jobs than we have stars,” she said, referring to the people seated at the ArtsQuest banquet area.
Since the pandemic, many workers have left their jobs for other employment or no employment at all, she said, referring to it as a “labor indifference.” As she has done at previous chamber forecast events, Dischinat appealed for employers to provide graduating students and others the training for entry level jobs as well as for future skills to advance.
“Get work ready, work trained and get working Lehigh Valley,” she said.
The chamber’s look at the year ahead in the economy drew about 425 people at ArtsQuest in south Bethlehem, down from a typical crowd of 700. Others, including Lehigh Valley Health Network President and CEO Brian Nester, viewed or participated in the event remotely.
Nester said LVHN hospitals have been “as full as they have ever been” with COVID patients, though in recent days, the number has dropped.
He said for workers, it’s perhaps the “worst phase” of the pandemic that began in spring 2020.
“Two years later, our staff is beaten down,” Nester said. “They are tired; they have seen a lot of death ... ”
He also said he’s seeing signs of optimism, in particular with the declining number of COVID-19 cases, from 500 last week down to slightly below 400, he said.
Nester, who was interviewed by chamber President and CEO Tony Iannelli, also urged people to get vaccinated, saying the action “comes down to rights and responsibilities. It’s not a political commentary.”
Nester also said LVHN has not had to interrupt capital investment plans, with hospitals or health centers planning to open later this year in Lackawanna, Carbon and Montgomery counties, and a center for health care education expected to open in early 2023 in the Stabler Corporate Center in Upper Saucon Township.
“There’s no doubt we need to train an extraordinary workforce for the future,” said Nester, previously an emergency room doctor.
On the national scene, Jay Bryson, Wells Fargo chief economist, said growth will continue, though not as robust as 2021, when gross domestic production surpassed the country’s pre-pandemic peak of about $19 trillion, and government stimulus packages helped put more money in people’s pockets.
He predicted higher interest
rates, with inflation remaining up during the year, though at an estimated 4%, he does not believe it will reach the double-digit peak of the 1970s.
One reason: Before the pandemic, Bryson said, only about 30% of household income was spent on goods; the rest was spent on services. In the 1970s, it was a 50-50 mix due to the oil production crisis. Bryson said that decade was also a time when labor unions were more powerful. When prices rose, so did wages.
U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-Lehigh Valley, covered what the region’s share of the federal $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill will mean in terms of transportation, broadband internet and other improvements; Andrew Desiderio, shareholder with accounting firm Concannon Miller & Co., provided tax insights; and WFMZ-TV News staffers Jim Vaughn and Justin Backover gave a look ahead to business development. WFMZ provided livestreaming for the event.
The Lehigh Valley chamber bills itself as the largest regional chamber in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and in the top six nationally — the rank excludes state business groups — with 5,000 business members who employ more than 280,000 people. Its reach extends beyond the Valley into the Poconos and Warren County, New Jersey.