The Capital Region Sectors that Are Attracting More Workers from Other Sectors

As employers struggle to fill jobs, Capital Region manufacturers, retailers and warehousing operators are having better success at attracting workers from other sectors than they did before the pandemic, when compared to employers in healthcare and construction, according to a Center for Economic Growth (CEG).

Fewer Job Flows

In 2021, several sectors in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metropolitan statical area each quarter attracted far fewer workers who previously worked in accommodation and food services, when compared to the pre-pandemic period of 2019. For example, each quarter, the healthcare and social assistance sector averaged 51 fewer job flows from the accommodation and food services sector, followed by administrative and waste services (-40) and construction (-29). These are inter-sector job flows from anywhere in the country to the Albany metro area.

 More Job Flows

While those sectors struggled to attract workers from other sectors, others saw job flow gains. For example, manufacturing attracted an average 15 more workers per quarter from transportation and warehousing than it did in 2019. Administrative and waste services averaged 163 more workers from health care and social assistance than it did two years earlier. During that two-year period, transportation and warehousing attracted 83 more average job flows each quarter from retail, 39 more from healthcare and social assistance, and 37 more from accommodation and food services.

Wage Competition

These changes in job flow dynamics come as certain sectors are rapidly growing in the region, especially Transportation and Warehousing. That growth also adds to wage competition between sectors. For example, in the Capital Region, a nursing assistant’s median hourly wage entry wage ($14.62) is only 41 cents more than that of a fast wood worker and 4 cents more than stockers and order fillers, according to occupational data from the New York State Department of Labor.

CEG INITIATIVES

To help Capital Region manufacturers continue to grow, CEG is helping manufacturers skill up their workers into higher-paying jobs. Since 2019, CEG has been sponsoring apprenticeships, and it currently oversees dozens of apprentices for several Capital Region manufacturers and technology firms.

In Saratoga County, CEG serves as the group sponsor for apprenticeship programs with the following manufacturers: Espey Mfg. & Electronics, GlobalFoundries and Meridian Manufacturing. CEG’s Maintenance Technician Apprenticeship Program with GlobalFoundries is a first-of-its-kind apprenticeship program for the semiconductor manufacturing industry.

CEG serves as the group sponsor for several  apprenticeship programs for the following trades:

• Brewer/Distiller
• Cloud Engineer
• CNC Machinist
• Computer Support Technician
• Data Analyst
• Electro-Mechanical Technician
• Industrial Manufacturing Technician
• Machinist
• Welder (Industrial)
  
  

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