CLEVELAND, Ohio - A new report says that not enough Northeast Ohioans have the education they need for the most in-demand jobs in the region, and that the gap will get worse by 2025.
The Aligning Opportunities report, released Thursday by Team NEO, says 65% of Ohio’s workforce will need to have a two- or four-year degree or a trade-school certification by 2025 to meet projected labor demand.
Northeast Ohio falls short, the report says, with 37% of the region’s population meeting this mark currently. Another 21% of people have some training, but no degree or certificate, according to the report from Team NEO, a nonprofit regional economic development organization.
The loss of population and people in the workforce since also widens that gap, Team NEO reported. From 2001 to 2019, 173,000 dropped out of the labor force.
The amount of people with post-secondary education has grown 4% in the past five years, but Team NEO says the post-COVID economy will need innovative solutions to address both worker shortages and retention.
“With fewer workers but increasing demand, Northeast Ohio faces a growing need to educate and train people to fill jobs hiring now and, in the future,” the report said.
Part of the problem is that Northeast Ohio retains just 47% of its graduates. Just improving that to 57% could keep over 3,000 educated workers here, including about 450 with four-year degrees in healthcare.
Team NEO also points to gaps in equity, and the barriers for people of color to earn a college degree, and the lack of minority owned businesses in Northeast Ohio. Both Blacks and Hispanics earn bachelor’s degrees less often and on average have lower median household incomes.
According to data from 2017, Team NEO says only 6% of businesses in the region are minority-owned.
Jacob Duritsky, vice president of strategy and research at Team NEO, said these gaps aren’t something the region can grow its way out of with population gains. But filling in gaps among diverse populations can help greatly.
“If we’re not going to grow our way out of it, we have to align more people in the economy to the opportunities that exist today,” Duritsky said.
He said if both college degrees and trade-school certifications were more proportionate among races, just that could fill one-third of the gap.
Of the 20 top available jobs in the report, communities of color are underrepresented in 19, Duritsky said.
Team NEO does point to several companies that are working to bridge these gaps, including MetroHealth, ARM TruckCorp LLC and Park Place Technologies.
Another trend that should help is younger people are gravitating toward more education options, like on-the-job training, trade school or apprenticeships.
Companies too are ditching the bachelor’s degree requirement, Duritsky said.
He said on both the supply and demand side jobs are becoming more about needed skills, and that opens up inexpensive types of education that can led to good-paying jobs.
Three industries have the highest demand for workers locally: health care, manufacturing and information technology, according to Team NEO. All three have more demand for entry-level workers than the amount of people educated for the jobs.
The health care industry needs more than 22,600 entry-level positions filled, but only about 14,800 people earned the needed degrees for the jobs in 2019.
Team NEO also outlines 20 other in-demand jobs in Northeast Ohio that pay good wages. These 20 occupations are good opportunities for students, it said.
The jobs range from health-services managers and financial analysts to web developers and occupational therapists.
Duritsky said they didn’t expect trends to be reversed quickly, but in the five years the Aligning Opportunities report has been done, he said companies have put in strong strategies that are working.
People can read the full report at aligningopportunities.teamneo.org/