Rochester Area Skill Needs Assessment and Business Climate Survey, May 2014

Rochester Area Skill Needs Assessment and Business Climate Survey 9

Chart 13

Rochester's Employment Outlook - Health Care Related Respondents

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Increase

Remained the Same

Decrease

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Future

The health care related respondents indicate less optimism for employment outlook (Chart 12). The share of respondents who expect to experience a reduction of their workforce in the future is higher than all the respondents (Chart 13). Chronically Difficult to Fill Positions How many positions are chronically difficult to fill? How many positions would businesses like to fill, but can’t due to a scarcity of qualified candidates? More than half of the respondents indicated they had at least one position that is chronically hard to fill. Survey respondents reported approximately 900 positions as chronically difficult to fill. The sample size in the two surveys is not large enough to support an assessment of whether this number is rising or falling. To estimate the total number of unfilled positions across the entire economy, responses were averaged by size class, and then the unfilled positions were extrapolated to the entire economy based on the distribution of firms by size. This is a very rough approach to estimation. If correct, then the number of persistently unfilled positions in the Finger Lakes area would be about 26,000 across a range of occupations, something less than 5% of total occupied positions. The estimation would be more reliable if the survey respondents were a representative cross-section of the economy. Which occupations are in short supply? All Respondents The respondents indicated the number of positions that are chronically difficult to fill, including identification of up to five specific roles. Each occupation was weighted by the total share of the stated chronically unfilled jobs (i.e. if they said there were 10 chronically unfilled jobs and gave 5 occupations, each occupation was counted as 2 chronically unfilled jobs). Based on the survey

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