While the Ocean State no longer owns one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, lowering it more remains a challenge, despite growth in the number of jobs.
Despite beginning the year with a jobless rate of 5.4 percent, by the time October numbers were released, Rhode Island had a 5.5 percent unemployment rate, a result of more people looking for work than the growth rate of jobs. And that rate is still more than half a percentage point higher than the U.S. rate of 4.9 percent, and significantly higher than the 3.3 percent registered in Massachusetts.
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A number of initiatives took root in 2016, many under the umbrella of Real Jobs Rhode Island, the signature effort by Gov. Gina M. Raimondo to better match workers looking for employment and employers looking for workers.
Late in the year, a $6 million federal grant was awarded to the Governor’s Workforce Board to help train between 700 and 1,000 local workers in advanced manufacturing and information technology-related skills to fill vacancies primarily in the defense industry.
One specific company is being proactive with regard to training its workforce. General Dynamics Electric Boat has entered into a $369,500 partnership with the Real Jobs RI program for an initiative known as Pipelines to Manufacturing Careers in Ship Building. EB will train students from six high schools, the New England Institute of Technology, Community College of Rhode Island, veterans and the unemployed with the goal of doubling the company’s Quonset Business Park presence to 6,000 employees, replacing retiring baby boomers as well as growing its workforce to fulfill expanded submarine construction.
One approach, supported by legislation passed in 2016, takes a longer perspective to developing the workforce. The new law will promote apprenticeship training not only in traditional industries like construction and plumbing trades, but also in manufacturing, information technology, design and management.
Contingent on annual appropriations, the GWB will create an incentive program in which participating companies could be reimbursed up to 50 percent of an apprentice’s wages or $1,000, whichever amount is less. The maximum a company can be reimbursed in a year is $5,000.
Looking at another potential source of workers, U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island Peter F. Neronha, in partnership with A.T. Wall, director of the R.I. Department of Corrections, convened a summit to encourage Rhode Island companies to hire formerly incarcerated residents.
Neronha said of those released by the DOC, “If they don’t have a job pretty quickly, they’re going to re-offend and go back in.” Rhode Island’s recidivism rate, 49 percent within three years of release, provides incentive to pull this portion of the population into the workforce.
The Rhode Island workforce also will be bolstered by new General Electric Co. engineers and data scientists who will populate the new GE Digital information technology center that has opened in Providence.
Still, the demand for increased jobs is great, as more baby boomers retire each day. The number of workers aged 65-plus is estimated to increase from 166,203 in 2015 to 264,238 by 2040, according to Charles J. Fogarty, director of the R.I. Department of Human Services’ Division of Elderly Affairs. •
