With the recession in the rearview mirror, the attention is now on the Flathead Valley’s dynamic economic landscape and building toward the future.
Many of the valley’s stalwart natural-resource industries, such as timber and aluminum refining, have been cut back or eliminated altogether, with a new wave of businesses filling in the vacuum.
According to Trevor Gonser, employment services supervisor at the Kalispell Job Service, the new vanguard of business tends to be more “knowledge based,” with jobs requiring specific levels of education or certifications, such as positions in the health care industry or high tech.
How does that affect the people who are looking for jobs now, and who are these employment seekers?
Data from unemployment statistics and U.S. Census Bureau information help paint a picture of the job-hunting population, but Gonser noted unemployment data only accounts for people who are filing for benefits while on the job search.
It’s hard, then, to qualify how many people are searching on their own, without the help of the Job Service or other employment placement companies, Gonser said. Still, with many of the valley’s top industries represented in the open positions listed at the service, it provides a snapshot of what the Flathead’s job seekers want.
Gonser said now that the Flathead’s economy is shifting more toward a knowledge-based economy, it can be difficult for older job seekers transitioning to a new field or those who haven’t been keeping up with the latest training in their fields.
A random sampling of 200 clients at the Job Service shows most are interested in customer service, retail, construction, driving, and manufacturing jobs.
“Generally, we see at least 50 unique people a day,” Gonser said.
According to data from the Department of Labor and Industry, Flathead County had a population of 96,165 and a labor force of 45,104 people in 2015, which is the latest labor data available from the department.
The largest age demographic in the county was the 35-to-54 range, according to overall population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, with more than 24,200 people. The Census reports that about 80 percent of those adults are participating in the labor force, which means they’re either employed or actively looking for work.
Of the population aged 20 and older in the Flathead — encompassing 54,788 people, 72 percent of whom are participating in the labor force — it’s almost an even split between men (27,048) and women (27,740). There’s a 76 percent labor participation rate for men and 69 percent for women. A little more than a third of the women have children.
The second largest demographic in the Flathead consists of kids ages 0-14, of which there were more than 17,400. The 15-24 age range and the 25-34 age range had a little more than 21,500 people combined, with the percentage of labor force participation increasing with age. For instance, only about 41 percent of 16-19 year olds participated in the labor market, compared to about 80 percent of the 25-34 year olds.
In the population aged 25 to 64 years old, equaling roughly 49,782 in the county, about 5 percent had less education than a high school diploma, nearly 30 percent had a high school diploma or the equivalent, roughly 37 percent had some college or an associate’s degree, and about 28 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher.
The average wage in Flathead County sat at about $38,500, and the annual per-capita income was just over $40,400.
Taking that data into account, a picture of the average job hunter in Flathead County emerges. Patricia Goocher is one such example. She moved back to Montana in November after years of living in California and Oregon. She left California in 2009 when the recession hit and the jobs dried up, and tried her luck in Oregon, where she joined the local pipefitters union.
As a pipefitter, Goocher, 51, is used to supporting herself, having worked union jobs in Oregon and California before a personal situation forced a move. She sat in the Flathead Job Service work area last week, perusing job openings and paying the bill for her storage unit back in Oregon.
She’s trying to figure out if she wants to move back to Oregon or make a go of life here. But in the meantime, Goocher said, she needs a job so she can stop living with family and pay her own way.
“I need to find employment where I can support myself,” she said. “And $8 an hour isn’t going to do that.”
She’s looking not just for pipefitting jobs, but also warehouse positions, or maybe a flagging job with a construction company this summer. She had a shot at a job that paid $12.50 an hour, but missed the phone call and the job went to someone else.
Goocher’s frustrations are tied to her trouble finding a position she needs. She works with a temp agency, and isn’t “too proud to take jobs” of all kinds, but to reach her goal of self-sufficiency, minimum wage won’t cut it.
Caroline Frary, 50, said she has trouble finding work because she’s behind when it comes to education and experience for many jobs. She said she tries for jobs like the one she had in California, where she was a business technical writer, but similar jobs here require more training than she has.
“You can’t have experience if you don’t get experience,” Frary said.
Her other challenges are logistical, she said. Without a phone or a car, she bikes or catches a ride from Kila to check her email and see if she’s had any hits on jobs.
Chelsea, 33, a job hunter who asked only to be identified by her first name, said she’s run into problems finding work because while she was married, she stayed home with her children and didn’t go to school or work.
Now that she’s out in the workforce again, Chelsea, a trained phlebotomist, said many places require years of experience instead of taking on new workers and training them.
As she heads into summer, her biggest requirement is a job with flexibility so she can keep track of her three kids.
“I would be happy even just getting a housekeeping job,” Chelsea said.