Published: September 17, 2008 12:16 am         

Employers lament lack of workers in Oklahoma

By Tim Talley

Associated Press Writer



OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma employers — including Brian Hayden of Advance Food Co. — told state lawmakers Tuesday they have more jobs than workers and need help in recruiting and retaining skilled employees.

Employers, appearing alongside officials from the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education, urged lawmakers to provide high school students with more flexibility if they choose a career path other than college and to provide more support for workforce recovery programs where high school dropouts and youthful offenders learn career skills.

Hayden, Advance Food vice president, said the company has hired 700 new workers over the past two years and recruits workers from as far away as Puerto Rico. But the company still has 95 job openings that remain unfilled.

“The state of Oklahoma is not prepared to bring workers into the state,” Hayden said.

He and others said the state does not actively help employers recruit skilled workers like welders and sheet metal workers and does not have relocation assistance programs to help defray the cost of moving to Oklahoma from other states.

Hayden said 150,000 people lose their jobs each month due to plant closings and layoffs across the nation. He said Advance Food has spent $500,000 so far this year to help new workers relocate and find homes in the state.

“The need for skilled workers is very near and dear to my heart,” Brent Dostal of Cantera Concrete Co. of Tulsa told members of the House Economic Development and Financial Services Committee. “We’re always looking to hire more employees, better employees.”

Dostal said his workers need to read and write and have practical math skills. Cantera, with 417 employees, has enough work to expand its payroll by 20 percent, Dostal said.

Lawmakers, with the support of state education officials, have emphasized a college preparatory curriculum for public high school students in recent years. But employers said there should be more alternatives for students to learn career skills through the state CareerTech system.

Employers have partnered with CareerTech to create the Work force Development Partnership. Officials said many of the jobs available to Career Tech students pay in the $30,000 range annually, but some earn $60,000 and more.

Ron Webb, CEO and president of Valley View Regional Hospital of Ada, said the hospital has a hard time finding workers and getting them trained.

“We have had to close our doors to new patients simply because we did not have the personnel,” Webb told lawmakers.

The area is experiencing a shortage of paramedics and in a few years the state will have 3,000 fewer nurses than it needs, he said. Webb said it is easier to recruit doctors to his hospital than nurses.

Phil Berkenbile, director of the state’s CareerTech system, said 12,000 people are on a waiting list to enroll in career and technology courses.

“That waiting list is ridiculous,” he said.

Brady McCullough, chief financial officer for Career-Tech, said the teaching capacity of the state’s career and technology program needs to be increased to provide more opportunities for students.

He also urged lawmakers to devote more resources to programs that teach skills to state prison inmates that will encourage them to find good jobs and stay out of trouble.