Willis: My analysis of WFS’s April 2024 Labor Market report

Workforce Solutions Lower Rio has released its April 2024 Labor Market report. Here are my thoughts on the report.

Unemployment rates at the county level continued their springtime seasonal monthly decreases in all four Rio Grande Valley counties along with Webb county. We usually see a spike in June, when schools lay off staff and a new batch of graduates hit the job market.

Hidalgo and Cameron counties are now at about the same unemployment level as this time last year. Our labor market remains tight but does not appear to be worsening.

Year-over-year, our civilian labor workforce grew by 2.0% in Hidalgo County and by 2.6% in Cameron County, compared to 2.0% in Texas and only .08% across the USA.

Our state/region’s population growth rate continues to be among the strongest in the country. This helps to attract new business, and it provides opportunities for our economic development organizations to promote our region to expanding and new businesses. 

As always, the challenge is to ensure our workforce has the skills needed to provide value to new and growing businesses, and a willingness to work in the specific occupations and industries where jobs are available. We can create all the education and training programs we want and need, but there must be students and others in the “job seeker” universe interested in careers in those fields and a willingness to invest their time to take advantage of education and training programs.

I serve on the industry advisory committees for most of the manufacturing-related technical programs at all three RGV community colleges/tech schools. The majority of our technical program graduates accept jobs outside of the RGV where wages and job opportunities appear more attractive to them.

In this “information age” we now have better opportunities to recruit them back to the RGV when they have gained industry experience and opportunities become available for them here. This can be a component of the “toolbox” economic development corporations use when trying to address the talent needs of site selectors and relocation/expansion prospects. Many of these “lost’ graduates did not want to leave the RGV to work and are willing to return for the right opportunity.

For those of you having recruitment/retention challenges, I encourage you consider looking into new avenues for recruiting talent. Some options include:

o       Persons with disabilities

o       Ex-offenders returning to the workforce from prison 

o       Internships with area high schools or colleges

o       Apprenticeships

Workforce Solutions/Texas Workforce Commission have resources, information, and support for you in all of these areas, and often funding and grants to help offset training cost or to provide specialized equipment at the workplace for people with disabilities. 

Texas Southmost college and South Texas College now have departments focused on providing training and technical support for companies interested in apprenticeship programs. 

Our May South Texas Manufacturers Association meeting was focused on Apprenticeship, and a copy of the presentation from STC will be on the “Resources” page of the STMA website by the end of next week.

Editor’s Note: The above commentary was provided by Mike Willis, executive director of the South Texas Manufacturers Association. The commentary was first presented to STMA’s members via electronic newsletter. It appears in the Rio Grande Guardian with the permission of the author. Willis can be reached by email via: mike@stma-tx.org.

The post Willis: My analysis of WFS’s April 2024 Labor Market report appeared first on Rio Grande Guardian.