Access to skilled and trained talent is the number one barrier to growth for some 435 St. Louis companies, according to a new St. Louis Community College study, and the region's economic future is at stake if not addressed.
“The greater risk is that you have companies that won't choose to be located in St. Louis,” said Phyllis Ellison, associate vice chancellor for the college’s Workforce Solutions Group. “If you can't get enough trained and skilled employees, then our major employers and startups will see a slowdown in growth and that will impact our economy.”
The 2022 State of the St. Louis Workforce report found that only 32% of local employers hired workers in 2021.
“Most of the challenges are reliability and commitment to the job,” Ellison told the St. Louis Record. “We assume that people just know this stuff automatically and they don't. Soft skills need to be taught just like technical skills.”
The study further found that a third of the workforce in St. Louis and statewide has a high school diploma or less and another third have some college or training, but less than a four-year degree.
“We have a huge candidate pool to pull from to train people but the reality is that for many, many workers they can't afford to step away from a low-paying job to go get trained because the low-paying job is paying the bills,” Ellison said. “We have to help them get the training instead of magically wishing they are going to be able to afford it.”
Among industries, the study determined that healthcare is the strongest performing with a 16% growth rate over the last 10 years partly because health services companies are expanding.
“We have employers like Express Scripts and Santine,” Ellison said. “You don't see much of anything healthcare-related in the St. Louis region that's shrinking. We are a regional magnet and healthcare is one of our strengths in terms of specializations.”
The study further found that healthcare is the biggest area for startups since 2015. There were more than 28,000 healthcare-related startups launched in the St. Louis region with 14,700 new jobs created by first-year startups every year.
“These are truly brand-new jobs,” Ellison added. “St. Louis startups were contributing about 30% of brand new jobs across the state of Missouri.”