Cheyenne – Wyoming’s booming economy is making it harder for employers in Cheyenne to find workers.
Joan Evans, director of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, said about 1,300 job openings in the Cheyenne area are posted on her department’s website.
“We’re in a workforce shortage in Wyoming because we think our economy’s booming, and it is booming,” Evans said Friday at a Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
Dale Steenbergen, president and chief executive of the chamber, said many local businesses need workers. “It’s a problem across the board right now, and it’s not going away.”
Evans noted that Cheyenne is not as reliant on the booming energy industry as other parts of the state and said Cheyenne’s worker shortage is improving compared with other areas.
Evans said the Department of Workforce Services plans to start recruiting workers from California and Washington this month, particularly for the mining and construction industries.
Evans also emphasized that because workers will be in short supply for the foreseeable future, it is important for the state to develop homegrown employees. She said the state must target baby boomers in their 50s, seniors and others who have been historically under-trained, such as inmates soon to be released from state prisons.
It’s often hard for employers to retain younger workers, who are more likely to switch jobs and careers than their parents, Evans said.
“We will have less people, so as employers, we are going to need to learn to work in a different way,” she said.
Lee McPheters, an Arizona economist who consults for First Interstate Bank, said the state economy created more than 12,000 jobs in 2006 and is expected to add an additional 10,000 jobs this year and 9,000 more in 2008.
That prediction means that job growth in Wyoming would continue to exceed the state’s population growth.
