Though Rhode Island’s job numbers have largely rebounded to pre-COVID-19 levels, Matthew Weldon, director of the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, doesn’t exactly see the state as recovered.
Instead, Weldon can’t help but focus on a key question: How many jobs would the state have added if the pandemic had not happened?
Alongside five other workforce leaders in the Ocean State, Weldon spoke at Providence Business News’ 2024 Workforce Development Summit on Feb. 15 at the Providence Marriott Downtown.
Weldon wasn’t the only panelist to note gaps in the workforce despite the Ocean State recovering more than 90% of jobs lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key industries such as health care and hospitality continue to experience workforce shortages, observers noted, and the construction trades also face a demographic cliff as workers age out of their professions while fewer candidates want to fill the previous generations’ shoes.
To address these workforce challenges, employers must remain flexible, panelists said – a common idea since the pandemic prompted flexible work arrangements such as remote or hybrid work, or nontraditional scheduling options.
“I think where we’re seeing less flexibility, we’re seeing less success,” said Ara Millette, director of talent acquisition and workforce development at Lifespan Corp.
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GETTING TECHNICAL: Douglas Sherman, center, senior vice president and provost at New England Institute of Technology, speaks about artificial intelligence at Providence Business News’ Workforce Development Summit while Skills for Rhode Island’s Future Executive Director Nina Pande, left, and R.I. Department of Labor and Training Director Matthew Weldon look on.
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Weldon agreed, stating, “The ability to be flexible is probably the best asset you can have at this time.”
While Weldon highlighted hybrid and remote options, he and other panelists said that even in industries that tend to require an in-person presence, such as health care or manufacturing, employers can make other accommodations to attract and retain top talent.
This need is apparent at Amgen Inc., said Julie Matthew, the biopharmaceutical company’s manufacturing director in Rhode Island.
The California-based company, which has a manufacturing facility in West Greenwich, reaches 10 million patients worldwide, Matthew said. But as the company scales up its production to meet increasing demand, it struggles to find and hire the workforce needed to power this output.
“Amgen is currently adjusting in building our capacity in West Greenwich,” Matthew said. “But we’re not able to add a whole lot of staff to do that, so we’re really working on boosting skill sets and maintaining and strengthening the staff … that we have.”
And with most manufacturing jobs requiring hands-on, in-person work, Amgen doesn’t have the flexibility of companies that can easily move work into a hybrid or remote environment.
As part of the state’s largest health care system, Millette also knows this struggle well. Still, she said, company leaders can find other ways to accommodate workers’ preferences and needs.
What that flexibility looks like could vary drastically by industry, she said, and determining the best path forward for employers and employees needs to involve “sitting down to the table to hear what the workforce needs or what they’re looking for.”
In addition to offering perks, industry leaders must also work to repair past grievances, said Lindsey Brickle, director of workforce and community partnerships at Polaris MEP.
“It’s not enough to just tell people that jobs are available,” Brickle said. “I don’t think it’s a secret that a lot of communities [that] were exploited by manufacturing historically have a certain image of what [the sector] looks like, and so you have to build trust in those communities.”
In addressing inequities, companies must also make an effort to increase diversity across all job levels, said Nina Pande, executive director of Skills for Rhode Island’s Future.
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Providence Business News’ Workforce Development Summit panelists, from left, Lindsey Brickle, director of workforce and community partnerships at Polaris MEP; Julie Matthew, manufacturing director of Amgen Inc. in Rhode Island; and Ara Millette, director of talent acquisition and workforce development at Lifespan Corp., listen to Nina Pande, right, executive director of Skills for Rhode Island’s Future, speak.
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“Don’t just hire a chief diversity officer who might be a person of color and think you’ve checked the box,” Pande said.
As the state’s workforce ages and college enrollment continues to decline, employers must also become comfortable hiring and working with nontraditional employees, Pande said.
She called on employers to invest in training and other education programs for adult learners, noting that “if we can’t fix [career readiness] on the K-12 side, it is a moral imperative for us to fix it on the adult side.”
Employers must also make a stronger effort to provide educational resources for students at the K-12 level, Pande said, particularly as the state’s education system falls short in key benchmarks such as math and reading.
“The systems are broken in many ways, and we can’t wait for the systems to autocorrect,” Pande said. “We’re going to lose generations of students. … We also need to make sure that schools are preparing kids for the workforce” and not just academic tests.
State leaders must also create more pathways for immigrants to enter the workforce, Weldon said, noting that many professionals who moved to the U.S. from abroad may have to navigate excessive red tape to begin working in roles they’ve already gained credentials for internationally.
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RUBBING ELBOWS: Attendees listen to the panel discussion at Providence Business News’ Workforce Development Summit in Providence on Feb. 15./
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“Someone who comes from another country with credentials shouldn’t have to become a [certified nursing assistant] all over again in Rhode Island,” Weldon said.
And employers shouldn’t count on artificial intelligence to fill in for workforce gaps anytime soon, said Douglas Sherman, senior vice president and provost at the New England Institute of Technology.
“You cannot take what AI spits out to you as a final product,” he said. “You have to have that knowledge to go in and make sure it’s accurate.”
Sherman added, “There always needs to be, from a higher ed perspective, a liberal arts component” to any technical training program.
Brickle also highlighted a need for workers skilled in managing AI. In some instances, “instead of your job being replaced by machines, you’re being trained to program these machines,” she said.
