Workforce Woes on the Gulf Coast

Recent contracts and growth in Alabama have created a shortage of 4000 skilled workers in the Mobile, AL area. A new contract awarded to Northrop Grumman will cause that shortage to grow to almost 6000! Here’s the story from the Press-Register:

The workforce challenges only grow greater for Mobile with Friday’s announcement that Northrop Grumman Corp. and EADS will build military tankers and freight airplanes in the city. “That’s a greater challenge,” said Marc Pelham, who directs the Brookley Field Industrial Complex for the Mobile Airport Authority. “It’s not about recruiting jobs, it’s about recruiting employees.” Southwest Alabama officials are already working to fill 2,700 jobs at the ThyssenKrupp steel mill in Calvert, 1,000 new jobs at the planned Austal USA shipyard expansion on the Mobile River, and 300 workers at the first phase of the Mobile Container Terminal. Now, there’s the prospect of 1,800 aircraft workers to assemble the KC-45A tanker and accompanying Airbus A330 freighters.

Later in the article:

The other short-term strategy is to get people with skills to move to Mobile. “Just as people have migrated to boomtowns for years all over the world, they will do the same to take jobs in the Mobile Bay region,” Sisson said. Part of a permanent solution involves steering more students toward technical careers, several leaders said. “Long term, we need to put forth some programs to get to parents as well as young people the advantages of career technical programs in our community,” said Sydney Raine, president of job-training agency Mobile Works.

My immediate reaction is this: “I wonder how many skilled craftsmen will be leaving their current jobs for greener pastures in the Mobile, AL area?” Skilled technicians and craftsmen are already in very short supply across the southern USA, and labor costs are rising.