When the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD) released their November employment report Monday, the news seemed positive on its face.
In Wabash County, unemployment was at 4 percent, which is technically considered full employment.
But, a closer look at the numbers reveals some more alarming long-term figures.
“As we have been seeing in the summer and fall, the trend of the shrinking labor force continues in northeast Indiana,” said Purdue University Fort Wayne Community Research Institute (CRI) director Rachel Blakeman on Monday. “While counties had fewer unemployed workers from October to November, most also had fewer employed workers.”
Blakeman said using year-over-year numbers, the negative trend on all numbers, including employed workers, workers seeking employment and the unemployment rate, was “more dramatic.”
“Although the ‘full employment’ metric of below 5 percent unemployment is true of all but Allen County, which was at 5 percent last month, the shrinking labor force shows the enduring economic effects of the pandemic,” said Blakeman. “There are no particular events in November, unlike the shutdown orders or students returning to school, that CRI can identify that would drive down the labor force so uniformly other than pandemic fatigue of workers.”
Blakeman said they anticipated they were seeing the effects of COVID-19 on the job market, including “parents who left the workforce because of unpredictable school schedules, workers who have given up looking for employment either out of concern for exposure to the virus or jobs not available in their particular industry and older workers who accelerated their retirement schedule.”
“Until the vaccine is in wide distribution and adopted by a significant share of the public, we can expect to see these shaky numbers into the first or second quarter of 2021,” said Blakeman.
Northeast Indiana Works communications director Rick Farrant said the shrinking labor force was one of the “warning signs on the horizon.”
“Many businesses are hanging on by a thread and resiliency is waning in some sectors. In the last few months, we’ve seen at least four manufacturers in northeast Indiana announcing closures, leaving hundreds of workers out of jobs. That does not include the impact the pandemic has had on businesses in the retail and food and accommodation sectors,” said Farrant. “Moreover, while there are still many job openings in northeast Indiana, businesses are finding it increasingly hard to find workers.”
On Wednesday, Grow Wabash County CEO and president Keith Gillenwater said the local unemployment level of 4 percent wasn’t “a terrible concern” as “there is always a section of the total labor force of folks that would be considered unemployable.
“They have issues that affect their attendance, behavior issues, or others,” he said.
Gillenwater said he shared the concerns about the shrinking labor force and increasing retirements locally.
“We know we have an aging community, higher than average in Wabash County,” he said. “The idea of COVID effect, whether it is fatigue, having to take an extended leave to care for an ill parent or child out of school, etc.”
Gillenwater said historically coming out of a recession, labor force shrinkage and a longer recovery were to be expected. However, he said this year has been particularly difficult.
“Whether it was official or not we hit a recession earlier this year when COVID was hitting workforces and we were trying to figure out what the definition of an essential or non-essential worker was,” he said.
Gillenwater said beyond the impacts of the pandemic itself, there was also “a generational shift in attitudes about work that play into this as well.”
“A traditional, 40-hour workweek outside of the house is still prevalent but factors like the rising gig-economy, contract workforce and work-sharing are also contributing to this decline,” he said.
Gillenwater said these changes underscored the importance of the Imagine One 85 initiative to reverse the local declining population, the housing initiatives to provide modern and desirable housing to attract people and the livability initiatives.
“It all works in tandem and each and every initiative cannot exist in a vacuum and be successful,” he said.
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