Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
PA Labor and Industry secretary hears small business hiring woes
Jennifer Berrier attended a local roundtable Thursday
LIMERICK >> A group of area small business owners had a message for Pennsylvania Labor and Industry Secretary Jennifer Berrier Thursday — we need help getting help.
In a meeting organized by state Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist., Berrier met with Tom and Jane Perkins, the owners of TP Trailers; Paul Sawchuck, the owner of Sawchuck’s Garage; Rick Wojton, the owner of Wojton’s Nursery and Leonard Evans, who owns several auto repair businesses and restaurants, including Coventry Pub, Jack Cassidy’s and Limerick Airport Hotel.
All told Berrier that they are struggling to hire and retain workers for their businesses.
“Blue collar jobs are not what they used to be. You can make really good money doing this work,” said Tom Perkins.
Part of the problem, the business owners said, is that young people seem less interested in careers in local businesses. Or, once trained, they don’t stay, which is a loss of time and financial investment for the owners.
“I have retired teachers working for me, people who are in their 60s and 70s, and they know how to work,” Wojton said. He lamented the loss of a landscaper training program at the Western Career and Technology Center school where Spring-Ford, Pottsgrove and Upper Perkiomen school districts educate their students in the trades.
Emphasizing the difficulties in interesting students in some careers Ciresi, who was on the Spring-Ford School Board when that program was cancelled, said the problem was simple — not enough students were enrolling. “That was a great program, I loved it, but by the time we shut it down, we only had eight students enrolled and we had to make a tough decision,” he said.
Sawchuck said it sometimes seems like training young people to work in his garage is not worth the effort due to the large number of them who quit, or move on to other jobs. It can take several years to train a worker in the car repair business given how complicated vehicles have become in recent years.
“A lot of us have invested in young people, and we’ve lost money,” said Tom Perkins.
Sawchuck noted that some of the automotive repair equipment used at the Western Center needs to be updated. Tom Perkins said the same thing about some of the welding equipment there.
Jane Perkins said the younger generation seems unfamiliar with the work ethic of persistence. “Amazon and things like that have made everything immediate. It’s an instant world now,” she said.
Sawchuck agreed, adding “schools are not teaching kids a good work ethic,” noting it is not uncommon for potential employees to even fail to show up for a job interview. He said of the 30 or so Western Center students he has hired, only one remains at his garage.
Berrier’s first suggestion was to look into “the apprenticeship model,” and she mentioned state programs which can help with that, as well as using PA CareerLink offices to find qualified employees, including those that may have a prison record.
“The labor market is tightening, that’s a fact,” she said.
On Friday, the state announced $297,000 in new funding to help Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 354 meet the demand for a certified, well-trained workforce in 14 western Pennsylvania counties.
“Supporting Local 354’s apprenticeship program will help develop talented workers for in-demand careers in the commonwealth,” Gov. Tom Wolf said an a press release announcing the funding. “Apprenticeship programs like this one allow Pennsylvanians to earn while learning the skills they need to get a secure, good-paying job.”
On average, graduate apprentices in Pennsylvania earn a starting annual wage of $70,000 and have the potential to earn $300,000 more than other workers over the course of their careers, according to the press release.
Through the funding, provided by Pennsylvania’s Pre-Apprentice and Apprenticeship
Grant Program, Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 354 will be able to continue a five-year apprenticeship program. Apprentices are taught welding, pipefitting, plumbing, and HVAC while receiving on-the-job training under the supervision of Journeymen.
Wolf’s administration has invested an additional $11.7 million through Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Pre-Apprentice and Apprenticeship Grant program.
The program works to increase apprenticeship availability to Pennsylvania employers to assist them with their talent recruitment and development. PreApprentice and Apprenticeship Program funding is provided to eligible applicants for the purpose of reaching the goal of increasing apprenticeship accessibility across the state. Eligible uses of funds include expenses related to instruction that complements on-the-job learning.
Pam Hacker, who works in Ciresi’s office and worked for decades as an electrician for the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers, said when she started the union had an “apprenticeship boot camp” which gave potential members a taste of what they should expect as an apprentice “which helped weed out the ones who were never going to stay. Me? I loved it.”
Berrier noted that women left the workforce in higher numbers than men during the COVID-19 pandemic for a variety of reasons, including childcare, thereby increasing the state’s labor shortage.
She also suggested accessing programs
which specialize in re-training veterans for new careers, noting Pennsylvania has the fourth highest percentage of veterans in the country. “I would hire a veteran in a heartbeat,” Sawchuck said.
Another state program that can help business owners is called “Skill-Up PA,.” she said. Offered through the state’s CareerLink program, Skill UP PA has as many as 4,000 online courses free of charge, giving employers a leg up on training new employees, and job seekers a leg-up on improving their list of skills.
“A lot of employers are unaware of this program,” Berrier said. Apparently, that included some of the people sitting at the table with her.
Evans suggested the creation of a program which could save students money. “Rather than have them spend $50,000 to $60,000 on these tech schools, bring them to us and let us train them,” he suggested. In many cases, those trainees would be using the most up-to-date equipment and would get real life experience while being paid, instead of paying tech schools.
There are complications with such programs, said Tom Perkins, notably that his company’s insurance company says having young people in a truck, even if they’re not driving, is a greater risk and so charges higher premiums.
But there are certainly advantages, such as saving the public the cost of building new or expanding technical school buildings, which have to be staffed and maintained, Tom Perkins said.
“We’re not looking for a government hand-out, we’re just looking for some help,” he said.