(KNSI) – St. Cloud area business owners cited expanded unemployment benefits as the most significant detriment to finding workers in a recent survey.
The survey was commissioned by the Greater St. Cloud Development Corporation (GSDC). It included a 16-question survey emailed to more than 1,400 businesses of the GSDC and Chambers of Commerce in St. Cloud, Cold Spring, Sartell, St. Joseph, Sauk Rapids, and Waite Park. The GSDC got 215 responses between May 6-18.
According to the survey, 56% of businesses listed expanded unemployment benefits for the labor shortage.
Other factors getting the most mentions in the survey included a small or inadequate pool of candidates (50%) and government stimulus checks (44%).
The data shows 28% of businesses said employee shortages led them to cut back on expansion plans.
Among the results, 53% had openings for up to seven positions and 23%needed to fill 14 or more openings.
According to the survey, it’s taken five or more weeks for 59% of respondents to fill open jobs in 2021. The GSDC says 14% of respondents had no positions they were trying to fill.
“While everyone knew of companies having trouble filling jobs, we conducted this survey to get a clearer picture of how extensive such challenges are in our region,” said GSDC President Patti Gartland. “These results further reinforce the urgency for the State of Minnesota to make immediate adjustments to better equip many struggling businesses.”
The pay scale for jobs cited as the hardest to fill was $15.01-$20.00 per hour, followed by jobs paying $20.01-$25.00 per hour.
The survey showed 19% of respondents were also having trouble filling salaried positions.
Around 5% reported no challenges filling any positions.
The ways most mentioned in the survey that organizations have altered operations due to employee shortages are with increased over time, indicated by 50% of respondents; addressing employee burnout/turnover (47%); limiting services (30%); cutting back on expansion plans (28%), and reducing production (27%).
Teresa Bohnen, President of the St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce, said her organization and the GSDC are approaching State leaders and encouraging business owners to do so to take several immediate steps to address these issues.
“Our local business can’t afford to simply wait out this crisis until expanded federal unemployment benefits end on September 6,” said Bohnen. “We need the State to take the steps under its control to make a positive difference.”
Gartland and Bohnen said those steps include:
Actively and aggressively enforcing job search and job acceptance requirements for recipients to qualify for unemployment benefits.
Reduce the scope of allowance for not accepting job offers, and establish a process for companies to report non-responsive applicants easily.
The Chamber and GSDC would like to add an incentive (termination of benefits bonus) for those receiving unemployment benefits to return to work, return the maximum term of eligibility for unemployment benefits to pre-pandemic levels, and offset the number of unemployment benefits by the amount added by the federal top-off.
Greg Windfeldt, President/CEO of Preferred Credit, Inc. and chair of the survey’s planning team, said it was important to note that this was not formal research that used random sampling of all area organizations to create a small margin of error. Instead, the results reflect the answers of 215 GSDC and Chamber investors/members who responded to an emailed inquiry.
“No matter what the survey’s methodology was, 59 companies responded that their current hiring challenges have forced them to cut back on expansion plans in our region. Fourteen said they’ve considered relocating elsewhere,” said Windfeldt. “Those are real challenges being faced by businesses, and we haven’t scratched the surface on how many are really being impacted.”
Other members of the survey planning team included: Brian Myres, GSDC Board Chair; Patti Gartland, GSDC President; Teresa Bohnen, St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce President; Dr. King Banaian and Dr. Richard MacDonald, St. Cloud State University; Luke Greiner, Central & Southwest Minnesota Regional Analyst for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development; Jeff Gau, Marco; Mike Markman, US Bank; Joan Schatz, Park Industries; Scott Fuller, ATS Inc.; Stefanie Brown, Rinke Noonan; Donella Westphal, Jules’ Bistro; Gail Cruikshank, GSDC Talent Director; Leslie Dingmann, GSDC Business Development Director; and Steve Greenfield, Greenfield Communications.
The results were released Wednesday by the Greater St. Cloud Development Corporation (GSDC), which commissioned the survey and collaborated on its development, distribution, and analysis with the St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce and St. Cloud’s Greenfield Communications.
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