What good is a new job created if there is no one to work that newly created job?

It’s a question state Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, feels deserves more attention from state economic development and labor officials. During joint legislative budget hearings on economic development and workforce development, Borrello questioned Hope Knight, Empire State Development CEO and state Department of Economic Development commissioner, about the best ways to make sure there is a trained workforce when state and local officials do attract new companies.

“First of all I think you know I appreciate what ESD does,” Borrello said. “I spent 10 years in county government and you provide us with the tools at the local level to level the playing field when we compete with other states.

With that being said, my concern, and I think I’ve talked about this with you before, is that we judge success based on the number of jobs we create. And that unfortunately is a problem still. The reality is that there are thousands upon thousands of open jobs in New York state. We talk about workforce but also there are industries that could benefit from an infusion of capital and support to help them essentially modernize and automate their industry. They’re screaming for workers — the food processing industry in particular.”

The National Federation of Independent Business submitted testimony to the state Legislature that 40% of small business owners report job openings that could not be filled. The labor shortage continues to drive wages even higher with 36% of small business owners reporting that they raised compensation, and 29% planning to raise compensation in the next three months. Additionally, 25% of small business owners continue to report raising average selling prices.

“We look at the impact of how an entity may create economic activity, the amount of taxes into the economy,” Knight responded. “We look at a number of dimensions when we think about success of projects, but jobs is one major contributor because that definitely creates the economic impact, the tax rolls, revenues to the tax rolls and provides for people to have a place to live and raise a family.”

Borrello interjected and reframed his question around the attraction of Micron to New York. The company was lured to the Syracuse area with help from a generous set of federal, state and local incentives, including up to $5.5 billion in state tax credits over 20 years. In addition to tax credits tied to investment and job creation, New York has pledged $200 million for road and infrastructure improvements where the plant is being built in suburban Clay and $100 million to a “community benefit” fund. The state also will review supplying the operation with low-cost power.

The deal is also expected to bring more than 9,000 jobs to Micron, and officials believe it could also bring close to 40,000 other ancillary jobs to the region, from suppliers to contractors, officials said.

“I understand that’s the theory,” Borrello said, “but the reality is there are positions right now that can’t be filled. That’s what I’m saying. I think we have to figure out a way to bring together the idea that what we need is a well-trained workforce and people that are trained to take those positions. I’m not so much saying we’re going to bring a new company in. Micron, I understand everybody’s very excited about the chip manufacturer coming to town. They’re going to have to have thousands of open positions and most of them aren’t moving to New York state. They’re going to be poaching skilled workers from other employers that are not getting the tax benefits that Micron is. That’s my concern. How do we shift that discussion?”

In separate testimony, the Business Council of New York State testified that the state’s labor participation rate was 61.5% in September 2023 while U.S. Chamber of Commerce data showed there are more than 440,000 open roles and 384,655 unemployed workers. That means if every unemployed person took a job, there would still be roughly 60,000 fewer workers than jobs available.

“This shows that the state needs emphasized, targeted interventions to bridge the gap between available jobs and our available workers,” Business Council officials wrote in the organization’s testimony. “It is important that we recognize that this numbers of unemployed individuals does not account for people who have stopped looking for work for various reasons that include not feeling support in their search of employment that matches their skill set, the decision to become a one-income household because of the lack of affordability of child care, and because, in some instances, earning more in income even just $1 causes more hurt to a family than joining the workforce.”

Knight said there are state programs to link unemployed workers to open jobs.

“I think the Office of Strategic Workforce Development is going a long way in trying to provide these training opportunities that have direct linkages to jobs,” she said. “By getting folks off the sidelines that may have had barriers to employment, we can get those folks into jobs.”