Apr. 21—Local industry leaders and professionals gathered Wednesday to learn more about the labor market at a workforce summit.
The summit, held at Baldwin High School, was put together by the Development Authority of Milledgeville-Baldwin County (DAMBC) and its PROPEL committee. Administered through the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government, PROPEL stands for Planning Rural Opportunities for Prosperity and Economic Leadership. The program was launched in 2022 to help rural communities develop their own economic and workforce resource strategies. Baldwin County is part of the second cohort to enter the PROPEL program.
The aim of Wednesday's invite-only summit, which was attended by some 60 people, was to connect employers with resources available to aid in workforce development. Included was a presentation of pertinent labor data as well as a panel discussion where several business owners and leaders shared hiring strategy successes and challenges navigating today's tough labor market.
Jonathan Jackson, DAMBC executive director, also announced three initiatives to help job seekers, workers and employers.
The first is a soon-to-launch hyper-local jobs website that will cut through the clutter often found on larger sites such as Indeed or Monster.
"You click on a job, and it's not necessarily one that's here in Baldwin County," Jackson said. "We're launching a new program that uses some pretty nifty artificial intelligence to sift through and post Baldwin County jobs from companies with a Baldwin County presence."
The site doesn't have a catchy name yet, but it will be linked on the DAMBC website, developmilledgeville.com, once operational. Jackson shared that the plan is to have it go live May 1.
The second announcement was a revamping of a former effort known as the manufacturers council. The group made up of plant managers and human resources professionals years ago would meet regularly to discuss issues facing their respective businesses.
"We're expanding the definition for the manufacturers council to include manufacturers by definition, businesses that are in or located near our industrial parks, or large employers," Jackson told the audience Wednesday.
The aim is to get that off the ground with a forum third quarter of this year, the executive director added.
The third initiative should serve as a lifeline for working parents with second-shift hours. Childcare can be very difficult to secure for parents who clock in between 3 and 6 p.m. and clock out between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. They often have to count on family members or babysitters since daycare facilities seldom operate during those non-traditional hours.
A $750,000 Department of Early Care and Learning grant received by Atrium Health Navicent is trying to take care of that need. The grant provides funding for seven Middle Georgia childcare centers to remain open beyond 6 p.m. to make working late easier for parents. Two locally — Robin's Nest Playschool and Miller Plaza Learning Center — have agreed to stay open until midnight.
"Here's the issue we have right now. They are ready. Parents aren't coming forward," said Joy Moten-Thomas, assistant vice president of government relations for Atrium Health Navicent.
"Now that we've got that availability, we just need parents to take advantage of it," Jackson added. "The way they do that is to go directly to those two daycare centers and sign up."
A panel discussion was a significant portion of Wednesday's summit. Representatives from local industries shared what has and what has not worked for them in today's labor market. Some of the information may have been beneficial to local employers at-large, not just those invited to the event. When asked, Jackson gave the benchmarks used to determine which businesses received an invitation.
"There were three factors that determined who we wanted to target for this event," he said. "No. 1 was manufacturers by definition who make a product. The second factor we considered was a company that was physically in or near our industrial park. The third factor was whether they employed a large number of people."
Labor data also shared
Earlier in the summit, Kira Greenfield from the UGA Vinson Institute gave some up-to-date statewide and local labor statistics to give attendees an idea of labor market trends. She said there are 5.3 million Georgians in the labor force right now, which is higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Baldwin County's labor force participation was 53% as of January. The full 100% is unobtainable due to retirees and people who have barriers to coming to work, Greenfield said. She added that 53% is "not perfect, but not as bad as we've seen in other parts of the state."
Georgia's unemployment rate is currently 3.1% where Baldwin's is 3.8. With "now hiring" signs seemingly up on every other business, Greenfield explained that people are quick to say there are simply people out there who do not want to work. She dove down into the data to give more reasons, sharing a recent survey conducted among Georgians 18 years and older who are currently not working and not retired. While 11% of them did say they do not want to be employed at this time, 28% responded that they were either sick or disabled. The highest response though, was the 29.5% who chose "other" as their reason for not working. Further responses included "did not report" (8%), lack of childcare (6%), laid off/furloughed (6%), and no transportation to work (5.6%).
