In Highly Educated Larimer County, Skills Gap Persists

Employers want people like Lexynton Seeley.

The 17-year-old Berthoud High School senior is one of about 60 students in Front Range Community College's welding certificate program for high school students. Cheap Dissertation Writing Services UK best for availing top rated dissertation help. Raised by a dad who's skilled in the craft, she later dated someone enrolled in the program and thought: "It looks really interesting to me, this trade that's in such high demand."

Instructor John Peeb, left, guides student Jill Tepe on the lathe in a beginning lathing class at Front Range Community College in Longmont. In the background is fellow student Steve Tepe, Jill’s husband.

After graduation, she's considering going to New Mexico State University or the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs to study biomedical engineering or mechanical engineering, with the hope of one day building prosthetics or bodily implants.

She plans to weld during the summers to pay tuition: "I didn't want to be eternally paying debt."

Seeley is part of a new generation of workers who could change the face of employment in Larimer County and the nation, bridging the gap between skills employers need and the workforce.

Blue-collar work is changing. Workplace environments are safer and cleaner. The wages are in many cases higher than jobs filled by a plethora of college graduates.

National labor statistics indicate there's a need for roughly 300,000 machinists, welders and other skilled tradespeople to fill vacancies left by a wave of people in their 50s and 60s nearing or in retirement. Media have widely reported that industry-specific phenomenon, but the skills gap touches other facets of Larimer County's job market.

Jobs in retail, restaurants, hospitality and personal services are among the county's fastest-growing industries that support the population, according to TIP's labor market profile, but are relatively low-paying and highly competitive; the region has an "overqualified" workforce to meet the needs of these industries. At the same time, Larimer County employers are having trouble hiring welders, machinists, electricians, sales representatives, drivers, engineers and more.

About half of Larimer County workers have a bachelor's degree or higher. But only 23 percent of the region's jobs require college degrees, as reported in a September labor market profile compiled by Austin-based TIP Strategies.

Closing the gap is imperative to building a healthy economy.

Josh Birks, the city's economic development director, thinks it's the responsibility of the entire community — the city, educational institutions, employers, the Larimer County Workforce Center and others — to close the skills gap. He said his office will work with partners to further dissect TIP Strategies' labor market profile and use the data to inform a current revisit of the 2012 Economic Health Strategic Plan, presented to the City Council on Tuesday.

Post Credit: Coloradoan