Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/956592
we need new jobs now but over the course of the next many years a need for re- placements as well, as peo- ple age out of the market," Peacock said. "But, we need occupations from manage- ment, business and financial operations … computer and IT is probably one of the most important and critical needs especially for our large corporations. And then health care is obviously a huge issue. That's doctors, nurses and al - so a lot of the technical staff." Computer and mathemat- ical jobs are key to a grow- ing global economy heavily dominated by technology, so Peacock said he thinks that's going to be where the region needs to attract talent. Those are some of the highest-de - mand workers across the country, he said. "We don't have many of those kinds of jobs around here, I think we have about 8,000," Jebaraj said. That forces many com- panies to farm work out to places such as Silicon Valley, Jebaraj said. "If the talent was here, they would be able to keep their business here or they would be able to keep that piece of their business here," Jebaraj said. "It's the same challenge as the rest of the state, a late start. It's hard to compete with places like Silicon Valley because it's developed a rep - utation, it continues to draw workers of that caliber in the same way Northwest Arkan- sas has a retail reputation. It's not that hard to bring retail focused people here." Jebaraj said another issue is places such as California ban the use of noncompete agreements between employ- ers and employees — which allows people to routinely switch jobs between compa- nies, resulting in competition that means higher wages — while most other states, in- cluding Arkansas, allow the enforcement of private non- compete agreements. "I think that states have started to look at the non- compete clauses and wheth- er they need to be as strict as they are and that's a thing we could definitely look in Arkansas," Jebaraj said. "Any- thing that promotes more competition for companies to get the workers ensures that the best workers will go to that place, too." The health care field con- tinues to be an important part of the region's economy, Pea- cock said. Mercy Health System and Washington Regional Med- ical Center understand they need to do more to meet the demand and continue to ex- pand what they have to offer, Peacock said. More areas of expertise will be developed, making it a medical destina- tion. "So, we're gonna need jobs in every sector but the health care and the informa- tion technology individuals will probably be our highest priority, " Peacock said. "The council will most likely be working to help companies recruit those types of folks." Peacock said the North- we s t A r k a n s a s C o u n c i l doesn't typically offer assis- tance recruiting an individual candidate for one individual job. "What we try to do is fo- cus on the region, keep every- one focused on the same goal of making this a better place to live and to work, bring- ing people together to talk about any challenges that we may have and then through our defining/finding NWA program we go out and we make sure that our HR folks at these companies, or other individuals that would be in- volved in selling the region or recruiting someone, knows about all the amenities," Pea- cock said. Charlie Collins, partner and co-owner of Crown Part- ners Executive Search and a state representative since 2011, said it's much easier to sell Northwest Arkansas these days. "Ten, 15 years ago people were not familiar with North- west Arkansas and they didn't have a clear idea in their mind, so there were a lot of questions. These days peo- ple are aware of it, certainly in our industry," Collins said. NWA Democrat-Gazette/J.T. WAMPLER Kendra Lane, senior product owner at RevUnit, works at the busi- ness' office in Bentonville. RevUnit is a digital product develop- ment firm. Recruiting v Continued from Page 1V Regional job growth remains strong, white collar jobs increasing The business of North- west Arkansas is mostly re- lated to doing business, but every job sector in the region is growing. "The trade, transportation and utilities sector, that's the biggest," said Mervin Jeb- araj, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas. "It's kind of a super sector, and the second largest is professional and business services; again it's a pretty large sector itself." The trade category in- cludes jobs in retail and wholesale trade, trucking and warehousing. Profes- sional and business service jobs include accounting, ad- vertising, financial managers and office clerks. Jebaraj said the profes- sional sector is growing rap- idly and, at some point, will probably overtake trade. "They're pretty close to- gether in terms of how much of the pie they represent," Jebaraj said. The largest sector em- ploys about 22 percent of the region's workforce while the professional and business services sector represents 20 to 21 percent, he said. Education and health ser- vices, leisure and hospitality, and construction all contin- ue to grow, Jebaraj said. Mike Harvey, chief oper- ating officer at the North- west Arkansas Council, said the jobs people are doing in Northwest Arkansas have changed over the past 15 years. High-end white collar jobs of personal service pro- fessionals have been getting stronger in the concentration of workers, Harvey said. "That does not surprise me at all because when you have a more affluent growth at the top, you get growth in the service sector," Har- vey said. "A job in IT, a job in management, a job in fi- nancial services or computer science or something to that effect is going to have high enough wages to stimulate demand for service jobs." He said service jobs, such as those at restaurants and retail shops, will also con- tinue to grow going forward. The sectors in order of growth are office occupa- tions at third; business and financial occupations fourth; education fifth; personal care sixth; and management sev- enth, Harvey said. "These are all big grow- ers; I mean in the past 15 years all the ones I've men- tioned are over 5,000 new jobs," Harvey said. Some areas with high growth numbers include 15,000 new jobs in sales, more than 10,000 in food p r e p a r a t i o n a n d n e a rly 10,000 in office administra- tion, he said. "I can just go on and on," Harvey said. "There's only one occupation, literally, one group of occupations that has shrunk in the past 15 years, and that was pro- duction. Everything else has grown." The region is also seeing a bump in health care pro- fessions. "Health is a little weird because health is doing two things. We're becoming more of a health care center, in terms of just being a market, while we're also just catch- ing up to the growth," Har- vey said. "We're just trying to serve the population that's growing here, and it's been really difficult for health care to keep up." H a r vey sa i d t h e s h i ft toward white collar jobs combined with a large por- tion of tradesmen nearing retirement is creating some pretty good opportunities for younger people entering the workforce. "An interesting thing that we're starting to see now is this real critical need for the skilled workers in the trades, not because there's a huge amount of growth there, but because you've got a lot of people retiring," he said. "So, these guys are all having shortages of laborers. There's a lot of good jobs, quite frankly, in the trades, and they're struggling to find people to do those jobs." Ron Wood can be reached by email at rwood@nwadg.com or on Twitter @NWARDW. On the job The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 254,100 people in Northwest Arkansas were employed in January. The job data does not include workers who are self-employed. Northwest Arkansas is the metropolitan statistical area that includes Benton, Washington and Madison counties in Arkansas and McDonald County, Mo. Here are how many Northwest Arkansas residents work in each sector and examples of jobs within each group. SOURCE: Center for Business & Economic Research About the categories The Bureau of Labor Statistics divides employment into two broad categories which are then broken into several sectors. Goods-producing industries The Northwest Arkansas numbers combine mining, logging and construction into one group. Service-providing industries Information Government Other services Trade, transportation and utilities Financial activities Professional and business services Leisure and hospitality Education and health services Natural resources and mining Construction Manufacturing Mining, logging and construction Information 1,900 reporters, computer programmers, librarians Trade, transportation and utilities 56,400 merchant wholesalers, cashiers, salesperson, truck drivers, meter readers, electrical engineers Professional and business services 51,200 lawyers, management analysts, nancial managers, office clerks, executive secretaries, janitors Government 35,500 federal, state and local government jobs, excluding state and local schools and hospitals and the U.S. Postal Service Education and health services 28,700 middle school teachers, teacher assistants, licensed practical nurses Manufacturing 28,500 bakers, slaughterers and meat packers, upholsterers, machinists Leisure and hospitality 25,000 artists, agents, waiters, cooks, maids Mining, logging and construction 11,000 carpenters, construction managers, logging equipment operators Financial activities 8,000 insurance sales agents, accountants, tellers Other services 7,900 automotive service technicians, hairdressers, clergy NWA Democrat-Gazette/CHRIS SWINDLE RON WOOD NWA DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE NORTHWEST ARKANSAS EMPLOYERS BUSINESS IS BOOMING See JOBS, Page 9V 6V v SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2018 ∂ ∂ TONY VINCENT (479) 439-0633 tonyvincent@allstate.com 101 N Broadway St Suite 102 Siloam Springs, AR 479-242-0000 "Tomorrow's Technology Today." 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