Employers have jobs to offer, yet struggle to fill vacancies

Gemma Koury of Greensburg was looking for a job Sept. 26, checking the various employers who lined the halls of the PA CareerLink office at the Westmoreland County Community College near Youngwood.

“I was looking for something in elder care,” said Koury, 32, who had been working in a restaurant during covid and was looking for a career change. She recalled being out of work for a while during the covid-related shutdown of her employer, and “it shook my world.”

Koury, who had been a caretaker for an elderly woman, was among about 75 people walking through the job fair, looking for work or opportunities to make a career change.

The employers who set up tables to promote the opportunities within their company were competing for workers in a labor market that has seen the jobless rate in Westmoreland County rise to 4.6% in August, up .4 of a percentage point from July, but down from 6.2% a year ago, according to the state’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis. In theory, at least, this fall should be a strong market for employers seeking workers because the county still had 8,100 unemployed workers in August, down from 10,900 in August 2021, the workforce information center reported.

For people like Koury and others interested in working with the elderly, there are openings at facilities such as Redstone Highlands, which has senior living residences in Greensburg, Murrysville and North Huntingdon, said Leo Stewart, a recruiter for Redstone Highlands.

“People are coming back into the field,” after the covid pandemic played havoc with the workforce two years ago, Stewart said.

The company has “a lot” of positions open for nurses, certified nurse assistants and personal care assistants, Stewart said.

The tight labor market has caused Redstone Highlands, like so many other employers, to raise wages in order to be competitive with other similar facilities, Stewart said.

Jesse Rotharmel, a recruiter for Express, a Penn Township staffing company, said it still is not that easy recruiting from the ranks of those seeking work.

“It’s still a struggle. It’s more than last year, but not as a good as 2019,” Rotharmel said, referring to the pool of potential workers seeking to fill jobs in fields such as manufacturing, retail, food service, administration and housekeeping.

Rotharmel sees a ray of hope in that this is the third job fair he has sought recruits, and more people showed interest than previous ones.

A lot of jobseekers stopped at the Westmoreland Mechanical Testing and Research Inc.’s table, asking questions about working for the manufacturer in Youngstown, said Jared Haines, a human resources specialist for the Westmoreland County manufacturer.

“I think there were a lot of people who wanted to work. There was definitely heavy traffic,” Haines said of the potential candidates who inquired about the company. There is not, however, an “overabundance” of workers in the labor market looking for the kind of work that the company is offering.

One of the companies with a lot of openings was Intervala, a manufacturer of high-performance printed circuit board assemblies and electromechanical systems at its plant at RIDC Westmoreland, the former Sony Corp. plant in East Huntingdon. The company’s products are used in the transportation, medical and defense industries.

“We have about 100 openings, over three shifts,” said Heather Gwynn, a talent acquisition specialist for Intervala. The employees work in a clean, climate-controlled environment at the plant, she said.

Unlike manufacturers in heavy industry, workers at Intervala work in a clean, climate-controlled environment because of the nature of the products they produce, she said.

The challenge for Intervala, as with other manufacturers, is finding people who want to work in their industry, Gwynn said. Those graduating from high school are often being steered to a path to pursue a college education.

“There is a need for younger people to get into manufacturing,” Gwynn said, to fill jobs left by those who have retired.