Workforce panel urges focus on career, technical training development

Ideas in the hearing will be used as legislation is drafted later this year to improve the state's business climate.

Of the 200 resumes that come across his desk each week, the chief financial officer of ABEC Inc. usually finds two worth phone screening.

Gary Bender told members of the state House Republican Policy Committee during a job creation hearing Tuesday that he’s trying hard to hire 35 more people in the Lehigh Valley this year, especially veterans.

But its been challenging to find well-trained, technically oriented workers and to find veterans, Bender said. ABEC designs, manufactures, installs and supports equipment that’s used to create vaccines, insulin and biotech drugs.

“It’s not old, dirty manufacturing,” Bender said.

Parents, students and educators don’t realize ABEC's good paying jobs don’t require a four-year college degree, Bender said. It’s hard to find job candidates with technical aptitude so ABEC’s offering co-op programs, internships and hundreds of hours of hands-on training, he said. Bender’s targeting someone with an associate’s degree or from Lehigh Career and Technical Institute.

Bender and others on the workforce development panel urged more focus on career and technical training programs. Lehigh Valley Workforce Investment Board Executive Director Nancy Dischinat advocates for connecting schools with a workforce development coordinator to assist overburdened guidance counselors. She also thinks career and technical education should be part of high school for all students.

All agreed the image of career and technical education and manufacturing needs to be improved.

“Why would you want to be in technical education?” asked Pat Hartwell, director of corporate human resources for B. Braun Medical Inc. “We say, ‘Why not?’”

Bender praised the state’s CareerLink program and urged more money be channeled there. He also praised new rules forcing the newly unemployed to actively search for jobs but he suggested there needs to be a filtering system.

“The applicants clearly understand they must post for three positions per week,” Bender said. “I swear they do it alphabetically because ABEC got a lot of useless resume postings.”

The workforce center is used by 1,000 people a week but everyone wants to go back to the job they had. Few are interested in starting over, Dischinat said.

Other panels focused on the regulatory hurdles facing small business owners and farmers and later tax reform.

Susan Roberts, owner of Wally’s Deli in Emmaus and Allentown, shared how frustrating the unemployment system is for small business owners. It is tough to fire workers and the onus is really put on business owners to document every misstep by an employee, Roberts said.

Roberts only has 11 employees, including herself and her husband, so there’s no one to fill in when someone calls out or is late, she said.

Mark Hoffman, president of Hoffman Insurance Consultants LLC, told the committee Pennsylvania’s high business taxes puts it at a competitive disadvantage with other states.

“It punishes every small business owner in Pennsylvania,” Hoffman said.

Reps. Justin Simmons, R-Lehigh/Northampton, and Ryan Mackenzie, R-Berks/Lehigh, hosted the hearing at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township. Simmons said the ideas generated during the hearing will be used as legislation is drafted later this year to improve the state’s business climate.

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