Since businesses reopened after the COVID-19 lockdown, employers here and in many places have struggled to fill job openings.
Members of the Bedford County Chamber of Commerce, at the chamber’s quarterly meeting Tuesday in Bedford Elks, had the opportunity to hear about some “outside the box” options for finding willing and able workers.
Karen Eppley, Transition Coordinator for the Bedford Area and Everett Area School Districts, spoke about work-based learning experiences for students with learning disabilities. The purpose is to help young people develop job skills.
Opportunities, he explained, include:
• Job shadowing, where the student will get a small taste of what the job is like for a short time, possibly just one day.
• Job sampling, where students can spend several weeks on the job, trying out different tasks to see how they fit with their interests and abilities.
• Unpaid internships, which he said “it’s not really a job, it’s a learning experience”.
• Paid positions, which he said can be seasonal, temporary or permanent.
Rhonda Long and Tammi Tirpak of Bedford County PA CareerLink spoke about the county’s labor shortage, which Tirpak summed up as, “We’re aging faster than our replacements (are available).”
They explained that in many cases employers can be reimbursed for training costs.
Edward DeAgostino, vocational rehabilitation counselor with the state Department of Labor and Industry’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, noted that up to 20% of the workforce has disabilities. And while hiring people with disabilities may require employers to make some accommodation, in many cases the investment is minimal, and with the rebates available, more than half can be achieved at no cost.
Mindy Rickabaugh, reentry services coordinator for Goodwill of the Southern Alleghenies, discussed the possibility of employing workers who have had some contact with the criminal justice system. The numbers, she said, can be surprisingly large.
Many employers struggle with the perceived risk of hiring people with criminal histories, but he stressed that “the fair opportunity talent pool is overlooked.”
Among the benefits, he said, is that many times these people feel they have been punished twice, once by the legal system and once by potential employers. As a result, when they do find work, “they tend to be extremely loyal to the company that hires them.”
Also on the show, Kellie Goodman Shaffer, the chamber’s president and CEO, announced that the chamber’s board had decided to encourage young entrepreneurs by offering them memberships through the age of 21, as long as they keep their business.
The first recipient was Tuukka Saari, who at age 7 started a tie-dye business. He has donated some proceeds to non-profit organizations like Bedford County Special Olympics and Your Safe Haven.
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