Ohio cities, ranked by duration of ads for job openings before the openings get filled. The statistic is one of at least seven weighed by a new Brookings Institution report, Still Searching: Job Vacancies and STEM Skills.
Dayton, 36.1 days, ranked 37th out of the top 100 metro areas.
Akron, 33.6 days, 57th
Cincinnati-Middletown, 31.5 days, 69th
Columbus, 26.9 days, 91st.
Indianapolis-Carmel, Ind., 37.5 days, 30th
Finding good people is challenging in metropolitan areas nationwide, but not quite as much in the Cincinnati area, a new national report says.
The Cincinnati-Middletown metro area is ranked 69 among the top 100 metro areas for an average duration of company advertisements for job openings at 31.5 days, said Jonathan Rothwell, an associate fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of a new report on the problem of finding the right people in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics)-related jobs.
That means the openings the ads advertise tend to go unfilled for about a month, he said.
Ranking 69 among 100 puts Cincinnati-Middletown metro area “fairly low” relative to other metropolitan areas, Rothwell said.
“That implies that the severity of STEM (jobs) shortage or shortage of educated workers more broadly isn’t as severe in Cincinnati compared to the rest of the country,” Rothwell said.
Another point to ponder, he said, is that demand for STEM jobs in the metropolitan area is not especially high either.
“If you look at the average market value of advertised skills, it’s sort of in the middle at 52nd, implying that for most companies, they’re not looking for the most advanced specialized skills,” Rothwell said.
When it comes to number of ads relative to the workforce, Cincinnati ranks 59th, he said.
“That suggests that demand isn’t really strong in the area, in that there aren’t many vacancies going unfilled compared to say San Jose, Washington, D.C., some of the places that have a more severe shortage” of STEM jobs, Rothwell said.
Another crucial statistic: It takes an average 42.4 days to fill a STEM-related jobs that requires some college or an associate’s degree, compared to an average of 24.2 days it takes to hire someone for a non-STEM job that requires the same level of education.
That means that those skilled sub-bachelor’s degree positions — whether it be engineering technicians, computer support staff or in many cases health care practitioners like nurses — those jobs are very difficult to fill in the Cincinnati-Middletown area, Rothwell said.
The Cincinnati-Middletown metro area fared better than Dayton, where the average number of days job ads go unanswered is 36.1 days, ranking the Dayton area 37 out of 100, according to the report.
From 2000 to 2010, growth in STEM jobs was three times as fast as employment growth in non-stem jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration.
STEM occupation are projected to grow by 17 percent from 2008 to 2018, compared to 9.8 growth for non-stem occupations.
Bill Even, professor of economics at Miami University, said jobs that attract a wider candidate base on a national level, as many STEM jobs do, often will take a longer time to fill .
“Not necessarily because there’s a greater shortage on the high end, it’s just that if you’re doing a national job search instead of a local job search it’s going to take longer to fill the position,” Even said.
Ron Rohlfing, vice president of hospital operations for UC Health’s West Chester Hospital, said competition to get well-trained employees is always fierce to get “the best of the best.”
“I think the way organizations have to position is they have to be an employer of choice, for one thing,” he said. “They have to be attractive to employees, which is one of the things we try to at UC Health, not only in providing meaningful work, but also providing good, educational opportunities within the job.”
West Chester Hospital also is reaching out to provide educational opportunities in area schools, including Lakota, Monroe and Mason school districts to bring students into the hospital and see what it does and show them how it applies science.
“Our goal is to get kids in younger periods interested in the sciences so as they’re making decisions about college that they’re jazzed about the STEM careers but also the variety of (educational) options,” Rohlfing said.
About the Author
