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LOL!
Maine - Enchanting Land of 10,000 frozen waterfalls!
Posted on 11/26/2022 11:08:42 PM PST by Cronos
Maine needs to get more adults into the workforce and create affordable housing options for them if it wants to strengthen the state’s economy and quality of life, according to a report released Wednesday.
The Measures of Growth 2022 examined 31 indicators, awarding Maine gold stars in areas such as entrepreneurship because the number of business starts exceeded closures by 9% in 2020. Wages are strong too, rising 0.5% in 2021.
But the council, made up of business owners and lawmakers from both parties, issued red flags for housing affordability, labor force participation, mental and behavioral health and research and development investment.
The nonpartisan report by the Maine Economic Growth Council is a long term look at how Maine stacks up compared to other states and the U.S. as a whole.
To illustrate the housing crunch, LuAnn Ballesteros, vice president of external and government affairs at The Jackson Laboratory, said by mid-October of this year, 112 candidates for positions at the lab in Bar Harbor turned down job offers because they could not afford housing in the region.
Because it’s been an ongoing issue for the lab, the company built its own 45-unit housing development — which was full before it opened, she said Wednesday during a State House news conference.
“The Jackson Laboratory doesn’t want to be in the housing business or the childcare business, but in order to be in the research and development industry and biotech, we have to have those supporting infrastructures,” she said.
Growth council co-chairman Stephen Von Vogt, president and CEO of Maine Marine Composites, said workforce availability and participation are big challenges for Maine.
“It’s an urgent issue in every industry and region,” he said. “We still have to unpack the dimensions and driving forces which stem from years of demographic, economic and social changes compounded by the global pandemic.”
The solution is a multi-pronged approach, from recruiting workers from other states and countries, finding ways to keep young adults from leaving Maine and training the workers who are here, Von Vogt said.
“Maine is the oldest state in the union,” he said. “It isn’t getting any younger and it isn’t getting any better.”
With a median age of 45, Maine is the oldest state, followed by New Hampshire at 43 years of age, according to census data.
Rep. Jack Ducharme (R-Madison) said Maine’s labor force participation rate was 67.5% in 2000, but is now 60.5%. For employers, the top concern continues to be inflation, but right behind it is finding enough workers and the right workers, he said.
In his district, footwear and apparel maker New Balance has begun offering flexible schedules, made it easier to apply for and get a job and created a new training line to help workers get up to speed.
“There doesn’t seem to be a clear cause or solution to the decline in the labor force participation rate,” he said.
Another area of concern is that the number of children with a mental or behavioral health condition is increasing, from 26.2% in 2019 to 28.5% in 2020, the report shows. That’s significantly higher than the national average of 22.6%.
Yellow Light Breen, president and CEO of the Maine Development Foundation, said the council added mental health this year after becoming increasingly concerned about the issue.
“We weren’t surprised by the data,” he said. “We all recognize anecdotally that this has been a particularly traumatic period we’ve all been through as communities and individuals. This helps put a number next to that challenge and that trauma.”
Sen. Jim Dill (D-Old Town) said it’s an issue the Legislature has tried to address in recent years.
“I think the Legislature has been looking at it over the last two or three sessions,” Dill said. “Have we made a lot of progress? No. Hopefully as we move forward, we can. It’s not just one thing. It’s a whole kettle of various and sundry issues. There is not any one good solution.”
I know the solution... More immigrants! /s
This is what you get when you tell white women to work outside the home and thus have fewer babies.
The powers that be are replacing us.
No immigrants, neither other Americans nor non-Americans want to move to Maine.
There is no incentive to live there. Fewer companies. And fewer workers. So those two feed off each other
I know that Atlanta is sending its finest Somalians there as well.
Immigrants will move anywhere, don’t worry about that! BTW Maine is a beautiful state...low housing prices ...what’s not to love? Hell, I’d rather live there than where I am in a big city.
No jobs. No industry. So no workers. So more companies leave.
The network effect
Exactly. This story is a complete setup. Whatever happens in europe happens here 5 to 7 years later. This was planned.
Politically, the state’s rabid progressives in the legislature are pouring salt on the wounds. If you need an example, go watch some of Sen. Dill’s committee meetings. These people are nuts and shouldn’t be surprised at the situation they’re in.
There’s plenty of Somalis sitting around complaining about their lack of more free stuff.
And then the issue that they are not addressing, housing. Tax and regulation issues are the problem.
First order of business get rid of these woke politicians then we can talk
Oh, there’s a way.
But Maine wwould first have to get rid of RCV, RCV-enabled voting machines, early voting, and mail-in voting.
Well, all I need to know is Maine has places like, Frozen Moosebutt and Frozehis Buttoff. That alone keeps me here in lovely Cochise County, Arizona.
Half Mainers on welfare.other half like my family work very hard
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LOL!
Maine - Enchanting Land of 10,000 frozen waterfalls!
I spend time there. With a FAR LEFT Governor, a legislature full of “F”ing SOCIALIST/COMMIES that tax the crap out of its residents and busiensses, locks you down, masks your face, starves small business, removes “work for welfare” requirements, lets the PUC shoves huge electricity hikes up the citizen’s asses, floods the states with ILLEGALS AND PAYS FOR THE “F”ERS, pushes WOKE BULL SHIT IN EVERY PUBLIC SCHOOL.... what do you expect.. what could possibly go wrong?
They need to get their housing problem under control, too, but have made
de themselves a haven for the homeless by boosting services for them.
Also, AirBNB poured lots of money into fighting an initiative on the ballot in Portland that would regulate AirBNB properties some and it got defeated, so the housing shortage in Portland continues as people buy up houses simply for vacation rental.
Is there any data on the number of employables among the unemployed who are staying out of the work force because of the government’s largess???
>> Maine needs to get more adults into the workforce and create affordable housing options for them
Substitute “The State” for the word Maine and that tells you all you need to know about the REAL root of the problem. And not just in Maine.
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