Full Report - Kossuth County Economic Development

Those respondents desire to start/finish college degree (42.4%), aend computer courses (12.1%), aendvocaonal training (6.1%), obtain connuing educaon units “CEU’s” (6.1%) and parcipate in on‐the‐jobtraining (3.0%). The primary areas of computer training which they want to take are soware classes (Office,Word, etc.) (50.0%), general computer operaons (keyboarding, etc.) (25.0%) and programming (COBOL, JAVA,network administraon, etc.) (25.0%).One‐fourth (25.0%) are likely to seek addional training/educaon in their specified areas of study within thenext year. Age, lack of me (work scheduling conflicts) and financing are the primary obstacles to obtainingtheir educaonal/training needs.Community and economic developers, college/university professionals and human resource professionals mayuse this informaon as a guide for determining and enhancing their workforce educaon and trainingprograms.O EIWD recodes the respondents’ actual occupaons into one of the seven Occupaonal Employment Stascs(OES) categories. The occupaonal categories represent a variety of specific occupaons held by therespondents (see OES Category Structure ‐ Appendix D). Classifying the employed by current occupaons andlikeliness to change, Figure 15 shows that the largest concentraon of potenal available labor is employedwithin the producon, construcon & material moving occupaonal category. The agricultural occupaonalcategory represents the smallest sector of workers willing to change employment. The calculaons forpotenal available labor are based on the Esmated Number of Employed Willing to Change of 5,766projecons found in Figure 11.Figure 15Esmated Workforce by OccupaonOccupational Category% ofRespondentsPotentialTotal in LaborshedProduction, Construction, Operating,Maintenance & Material Handling31.8% 1,834Professional, Paraprofessional & Technical 27.3% 1,574Sales 16.7% 963Clerical/Administrative Support 10.6% 611Managerial/Administrative 9.1% 525Service 3.0% 173Agriculture 1.5% 86Total 100% 5,766Figure 16 provides a comparison of those willing to change employment by gender. The Kossuth CountyLaborshed area has a higher percentage of males who are employed willing to change than females (62.7% and37.3%, respecvely). Employers within the Laborshed area looking to fill posions can ulize this informaonto more efficiently focus their recruitment efforts in the occupaonal categories from which they plan to hire.The occupaonal categories encompass a widevariety of individual occupaons in whichworkers in the Laborshed area are employed. Insome cases, workers willing to change posionsmay be employed in jobs that do not maximizeall of their available skills and work experiences.Employees may possess talents that gounulized or unrecognized by their currentemployer. Employers tapping into this resourcemay be effecve in aracng employees todifferent posions or increasing their value tothe company. For a list of current or previousoccupaonal tles and experiences in theKossuth County Laborshed area, contact theKossuth/Palo Alto County Economic DevelopmentCorp.Occupational Category Male FemaleManagerial/Administrative 100.0% 0.0%Professional, Paraprofessional & Technical 55.6% 44.4%Sales 36.4% 63.6%Clerical/Administrative Support 28.6% 71.4%Service * *Agriculture * *Production, Construction, Operating,Maintenance & Material Handling* Insufficient survey data/refusedFigure 16Occupaonal Categories by Gender90.5% 9.5%Kossuth County Laborshed Analysis 12 Released March 2013