Underemployment
The Pathfinders, Site Selection/Location Analysis Consultants, from Dallas Texas recently completed a Workforce Audit for the Central New York area. Shown below are excerpts from the final report or download the complete report.

The Central New York Area Labor Availability Report
The Pathfinders has employed its experience in workforce assessments for corporate site-selection clients and civilian workforce assessments for the Department of Defense in locations that faced military base closures to produce this evaluation of the Central New York area workforce. The information presented in this report has been developed independently of the client, and the client has not influenced the findings.

The Pathfinders functions as a site-selection consultant to many of America's largest corporations, including companies such as AT&T, DuPont, Celanese, 3M Corporation, IMC Global, Singapore Aerospace, AIG, and Ciba-Geigy. The question that most often drives the search for a new business location is whether the candidate location has the workforce needed, and a workforce analysis has been a key component of the site searches conducted for these clients. Senior human resources executives from among corporate clients assisted in refining this methodology and report format. Companies making location decisions based upon these surveys have reported that when staffing actually began, the numbers reported by The Pathfinders proved to be accurate.

In a poll of its corporate clients, The Pathfinders found that those clients' experiences suggest that less than 10% of the new hires for new operations come from the ranks of the unemployed. Instead, these clients and other companies staff a new operation principally with individuals who are working but who desire better jobs and who appear to possess the skills, education, and experience to qualify them for those better jobs. By that definition, those individuals can be considered "underemployed" and are identified as such in this report. The type of quality employer that the Central New York region is attempting to attract will typically hire people who come from this group. As a consequence, The Pathfinders was retained to quantify the extent to which underemployment exists in the area, as well as to document the cost, skills, experience, and education of that hidden workforce. This report represents the objective and professional view of The Pathfinders with regard to workforce availability, cost, skills, and quality that a new employer can expect in the Central New York region.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

• The Central New York area, referred to in this report as the "labor shed", has a household population of approximately 784,900 and a civilian labor force of approximately 381,600.
• The labor shed has a pool of approximately 19,000 unemployed persons who are actively seeking work.
• A new employer will be able to attract employees from an additional pool of about 40,600 workers. These individuals are currently employed and have indicated an interest in changing jobs.
• These potentially available workers are referred to in this report as the "underemployed" because they appear to possess the skills, experience, and education to qualify them for the pay rates at which they would take a new job.
• The desired pay rates of these underemployed workers are reasonable when compared to their existing pay rates. The median current pay rate of the underemployed workers is $14.63 per hour, and the median desired pay rate of the underemployed workers is $16.38 per hour.
• About 25% of the underemployed workers would take a new job for $12.07 per hour or less. At the upper end, the 25% most qualified and experienced will command more than $25.33 per hour.
• Roughly 11,600 people, neither employed nor seeking work, might re-enter the workforce for the proper job.
• In total, the Central New York area has 71,200 available workers for new or expanding businesses.

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