Insurance cost makes River Parishes a tough sell for employers

While 32.8 percent of the residents that live in St. Charles work inside the parish, employers in the River Parishes have difficulty recruiting personnel from outside the region, according to a recent labor market analysis for the area.

The study was a project of the River Region Economic Development Initiative. RREDI is a consortium of the economic development organizations of the River Parishes.  St. Charles, St. James and St. John Parishes, along with the Port of South Louisiana, equally funded half of the study, Louisiana Economic Development funded the other half.

The study used information obtained through surveys of labor-related issues among employers and households in the tri-parish region. The employer survey gathered information from area business owners concerning the availability, quality and cost of labor. It also took into account the quality and utilization of educational institutions and training resources, and the future demand for workers.

A separate household survey enabled researchers to identify the region’s labor force.

The study did illustrate several positives. The River Parishes are able to draw workers from anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes away. That translates into an effective labor force of 461,000 to 622,000 people. Most other areas of the country only have a 30-mile radius from which to draw potential employees.

The River Parishes also has 9,037 residents that want to work but are not currently employed.

Based on those findings, the study says that the region can support a large new office employer and a large new manufacturing or distribution operation. Together, those new businesses could potentially hire up to 2,334 qualified and screened workers.

But the region also faces some labor-related challenges.
The number of residents that don’t have a post-high school education exceeds the national average and 7,428 employees are eligible to retire over the next five years. Employers are not confident or are unsure if they will be able to fill retirement vacancies in 37 percent of those positions.

A reason for that may be the difficulty those employers have in recruiting managers and professional talent from outside the area. The study cites the cost of housing and homeowner’s insurance as major obstacles in recruiting personnel from outside the region. Another contributing factor is a concern about the quality of public schools.
Employers report that competitor locations, such as Houston, offer more appealing quality-of-life opportunities to technical, professional and managerial recruits.

The study also showed that there are critical labor shortages in occupations such as teachers, electrical and electronic repairers, industrial machinery mechanics, maintenance workers and unskilled laborers.