Finding workers: What our peers say

With unemployment numbers running about 4 percent - sometimes a tad lower - finding workers can be an issue. How big an issue seems to depend upon the industry.

Therefore, I asked two knowledgeable and trusted sources - Diane Middlebrooks, women's initiative coordinator at Itasca Bank & Trust Co., and Jennifer Adams Murphy, shareholder and senior attorney at the Wessels Sherman law office in St. Charles - for some input.

"What I have noticed," says attorney Adams Murphy, "is that clients in the restaurant and food industries are having great difficulties hiring."

In general, Adams Murphy emailed in response to a question, "Clients have been complaining about problems finding employees to fill needs due, in part, to immigration issues but also a result of the (stronger) economy and employees flipping around from business to business."

There's little doubt that a tighter labor market has made finding new employees more difficult - as tight labor markets tend to do. Green Industry Pros, a trade publication and website published for businesses in lawn maintenance and related equipment by AC Business Media, Fort Atkinson, WI, says that among businesses that rely on seasonal workers, "Landscaping companies have been hit the hardest (because) they employ more H-2B visa holders than any other industry."

H-2B visas allow businesses to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis to work in nonagricultural sectors. Although many suburban landscape businesses apparently have full-time (year-round) staff, those that rely on H-2B workers have hoops to jump through - including ones at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Middlebrooks asked members of the two Women's Initiative monthly roundtables for women owners of long-established businesses that she facilitates in Itasca and Roselle for their thoughts.

Here, edited for space purposes and without identification because several respondents said they did not want to be identified, are those thoughts:

• We are absolutely feeling the change in the labor pool over the last six months. Within my industry (home health care), field staff are generally employees in the lower wage arena. I think the decrease in unemployment is affecting the number of available workers (which is a positive thing but also has a ripple effect).

We are also competing for employees with the assisted living centers that are coming up everywhere. Salaries are being driven up due to the high demand and low availability of workers. Unfortunately, the cost of private care has a ceiling that we are nearing. The employer is in the middle, trying to meet the demands of both the client and the employee.

• I certainly have been hearing rumblings in the tech sector that it is hard to find the right-fit employees. That being said, it is becoming more difficult to find people in other areas as well. More employers than ever are turning to training and development to address (new employee skill) gaps.

Next week, more from our peers on hiring.

Want to get into the conversation? Share your own experiences? Email me at the address below.

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