Fifth of mid-state workers underemployed on The Murfreesboro Post

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Fifth of mid-state workers underemployed

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Posted: Thursday, January 21, 2010 9:50 am

Southern Middle Tennessee has an estimated 47,253 people available for work as of July 2009, according to a study conducted by the Business and Economic Research Center (BERC) at the Jennings A. Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University and funded by Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

The survey-based workforce study examines the number and characteristics of available workers in the seven-county region—Bedford, Coffee, Franklin, Grundy, Lincoln, Moore, and Warren—to provide a broader perspective on workforce issues.

Commissioned by the industrial development boards of seven counties and local workforce investment area 6 (LWIA 6), the BERC study shows that an estimated 16.64 percent 18,523 regional unemployment rate, involving 18,523 people, as of late July 2009 is just the tip of the iceberg: an estimated 18,055 people are underemployed, and 10,675 people are discouraged workers and other marginally attached.

According to the BERC estimates, nearly one in every five employed workers (19.5 percent) is underemployed. Combined together, the potentially available labor force is 39 percent of the labor force plus all marginally attached.

“Identifying the underemployed workforce and analyzing their characteristics will help the region in three distinct ways,” said Murat Arik, BERC associate director. “First, the region will be able to attract new businesses by demonstrating that the region has enough supply of qualified workforce; second, underutilization of workforce is a loss to the area economy. Identifying and addressing the causes of underutilization will help the study area economy create a sustainable growth; and third, identifying and addressing workforce skill-related issues mean better paying jobs and job satisfaction for area workforce.”

According to Murat Arik, Ph.D., lead researcher for the study, “ the seven-county region has significant number of underemployed workers with rich skill make up who are willing to work additional hours and looking for jobs to better utilize their skill and experience.”

Key Study Findings:
• An estimated 47,253 people are available for work in the seven-county region.
• 18,523 people are unemployed.
• 18,055 people are underemployed.
• 10,675 people are discouraged workers and other marginally attached.
• 19.5 percent of employed workers are underemployed.
• An estimated 32.86 percent of the labor force is either unemployed or underemployed.
• Combined, the potentially available labor force is 39 percent of the labor force plus all marginally attached.
Age, Gender and Education
• 54 percent of underemployed workers are between 18 and 34 years old.
• Underemployment is prevalent among males and females almost equally.
• The underemployed are better educated than the unemployed or all marginally attached.
Skilled Trade
• Nearly 28,000 individuals who are available for work, representing about 60 percent of the total available labor force, have at least one trade skill.
• 582 underemployed workers indicated that they have all of the following skills: occupational license, professional certificates, skilled trade, and local job readiness training.
Wage Rate
• Wage expectations of the available labor force are not high.
• 6,264 individuals are willing to accept a wage rate of less than $7, below the federal minimum wage.
• 14,906 individuals are willing to accept less than $8.
• 20,470 individuals (43.47 percent of the available labor force) are willing to accept less than $9.
Mobility
• Many individuals are willing to commute more than 20 miles for the job they want.
• 3,165 individuals are willing to commute more than 50 miles.
• 11,494 individuals are willing to commute more than 30 miles.
• 23,674 individuals (50.25 percent of the available labor force) are willing to commute more than 20 miles for a new job.

To view the full workforce study report, please visit www.mtsu.edu/~berc.

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Tags: BERC, Economy

Member Opinions:

By: BoltAction on 1/21/10
How's that Obama change working out for everyone? Maybe they should stay out of our lives, cut taxes, and let us fix the economy.

By: jg13 on 1/22/10
Yeah...let big corporations, big banks, big oil, etc. take full control. They'll watch out for us! With the Republican win in MA and the activist court's ruling which rolled back 35 years of campaign finance reform, we'll be getting just that. We'll see what the Republican utopia looks like. My guess: A rod and gun club full of broke white supremacists ignorantly blaming their poverty on "Comy Libs." Basically it'll look like a tea bagger rally.

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