Iolan: Local work force is ‘saturated’

Lonnie Larson has had his finger on the pulse of Iola’s workforce for more than 30 years.
He worked at Gates Corporation for more than 17 years, including 13 as human resources manager and another 10-plus at Russell Stover Candies as assistant plant manager and then plant manager. For the past four years, he’s served as Sonic Equipment Company’s director of quality assurance.
He’s seen employees come and go. He also has a grasp of the issues local employers face as they work to get a handhold in today’s tumultuous economy.
First the good news:
“Iola has a good workforce,” Larson said. “People here are steady and come to work every day. And we’re fortunate to have the companies we have here.”
Labor figures back up Larson’s assessment.
 Depending on which reporting agency you consult, Allen County’s unemployment level was between 3.4 percent and 4.2 percent in October, according to the most recent data available.
The problem?
“We’ve saturated that workforce,” he said. “Today there are more jobs than quality employees. The opportunity for the larger manufacturers to expand is limited because the quality of available additional workers is not there.”
Suppose a local employer wanted to expand, potentially adding 100 employees, Larson offered.
“My first question would be, where are you going to get them?” he said.
At odds with the available jobs is the shrinking workforce.
Allen County – like the rest of southeast Kansas – is shrinking.
Census figures show the county’s population decreased nearly 7 percent from 2000 to 2010, from 14,385 to 13,371.
Those trends still point downward. Iola’s population in 2013 was 5,613, roughly 100 fewer citizens than in 2010 and 700 fewer than in 2000.
The charge facing local employers is to stem that tide.
“If we are going to attract more quality individuals for the workforce, it has to come from outside,” Larson said.

ATTRACTING employees from outlying areas leads to an equally cumbersome hurdle – housing.
“I’m not an expert,” Larson said, “but affordable housing just isn’t there. You can’t just build more houses, because you can’t get it in the price range that people can afford. And people won’t move here (despite job offers) if they can’t afford the housing. It’s a Catch 22.
“The bad side of that situation is, how long can businesses in Iola sustain their operations in that type of environment?” he asked. “That’s what makes me nervous.”

LARSON ALSO spoke on other issues facing employers.
“There are still a lot of people that have that good rural work ethic,” he said. “They’re here, but they’re already working.”
What remains among the unemployed “is a lack of that caliber of person who has that work ethic, who shows up every day and you can count on them,” Larson said. “That’s diminished.
“What I’ve seen, and I’m trying to say this tactfully, is core work ethics have gone away for some people,” Larson continued. “When I was young, my dad told me a couple of things. When you took a job for a company, it’s just a given that you show up for work every day, you show up on time and you give 100 percent to the man that’s paying you. That doesn’t exist as much any more.”
That isn’t unique to Iola, he stressed.

LARSON ALSO talked about schools in Iola and surrounding areas.
“In my mind, the educational system we have in Iola, Humboldt, Moran and Chanute is a good educational system. They do a good job teaching our kids. Can they do more? I don’t know.”
Many of the best and brightest students, obviously, head out to college, Larson continued. From there, employment opportunities elsewhere inevitably beckon.
“There’s always going to be a ‘brain drain’ here,” Larson said.
The trick is finding avenues in which those students eventually return to their hometown.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE the pull of home, Larson said.
He noted most any company in Iola draws employees from neighboring towns – Humboldt, Moran, Chanute, for example. Likewise, businesses in those towns often employ Iolans.
“Those are the ones who want to stay and live in their hometowns, where they’re near family,” Larson said.
Not so coincidentally, those are often the ones considered most employable. “They’re the ones who keep their communities strong,” he said.

“I’D REALLY never want to be in a position and say ‘this is it,’” Larson said, “that this is as big as local employers can get.”
Sonic, for example, has some flexibility because it serves such a wide swath of customers. The company builds, services and supplies theater chains in 38 of the 50 states.
As a result, the company can hire employees in many remote locations.
“It’s a different day and time than it was 30 years ago,” Larson said.
Sonic, like most of the others in the area, already have reached out to employees at Amazon and Southwire, Coffeyville-based plants that will soon close.
“I sit on the Iola Industries board,” he said. “There are groups trying to figure out how to get contacts made, to show what’s available; to see if it’s affordable to drive back and forth for the pay rates we have.”