Like most places around the country, the St. Louis area's workforce has been in decline in the midst of a pandemic and what experts have deemed "the great resignation."
Tony Fuhrmann, director of the Madison County Employment and Training department, discussed some of the reasons the workforce has shrunk, and what's being done to fix it.
Fuhrmann's organization has been holding roundtable events for local businesses and education institutions can come together to increase the workforce. Currently, he said, the workforce in the Metro East is about hte same as anywhere.
"We have a need for employees in any sector, any industry," he said. "It doesn't matter which industry or sector you talk to the business community about -- they need more workers."
This worker shortage isn't entirely out of the blue, Fuhrmann explained -- it's just a bit accelerated.
"What the pandemic did was forced things ahead about 10 years," he said. "3 million older individuals retired during the pandemic, which is much higher than a normal year. And so the prediction was in about 10 years that there would be a shortage of workers. Well, the pandemic just sped that up by about 10 years."
Listen to the full conversation about the state of the region's workforce:
