Mon Valley unemployment figures down
Unemployment has been on a downswing this summer in much of southwestern Pennsylvania.
“(W)e are seeing some signs it is turning around,” said John Easoz, chairman of the board of the Mon Valley Alliance, the economic development organization formed in a merger of the Middle Monongahela Industrial Development Association and Mon Valley Progress Council.
The rate for Pennsylvania as a whole stayed at 5.6 percent through July, with the combined seasonally adjusted rate for the seven-county Pittsburgh metropolitan area remaining at 5.5 percent through June.
That included a 6 percent rate in Washington County and 5.7 percent in Westmoreland County.
For Washington that’s a decline from 6.4 percent in May and 6.8 percent in April, while Westmoreland was down from 6 percent in May and 6.3 percent in April.
The lowest rates in the seven-county area were 4.9 percent in Butler County and 5.1 in Allegheny.
Greene, which isn’t part of the seven-county Pittsburgh region, saw its seasonally adjusted jobless rate drop from 8.1 percent in April to 7.8 in May and 7.3 in June.
The problem of job openings with a lack of qualified people to fill them has been a focus since May 4 for the ongoing “Inflection Point: Supply, Demand and the Future of Work in the Pittsburgh Region” project of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.
The project seeks to tackle the prospect that, with “baby boomers” retiring, few skilled workers being available to take their places and a slow inward migration into the Pittsburgh region, that the 10 counties around Pittsburgh may be 80,000 short of what’s needed to fill the jobs that will exist 10 years from now.
Conference spokesman Philip Cynar said that there have been meetings with more than 2,500 individuals over the past four months, including economic development officials, educators, civic leaders, elected officials and others.
“We’ve gotten a lot of excellent feedback and have been logging all of it to further inform our efforts to reverse the region’s particular workforce supply-demand issue,” Cynar said. “The dialogue will be ongoing, and we’ll be having more updates to share in coming weeks and months.”
Adding emphasis to conference concerns is the planned Shell Cracker Plant in Monaca, Beaver County, a project likely to have far-reaching effects, state Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Davin told roundtables in three area counties late last month.
That even could extend to the Mid-Mon Valley, which lost some companies after the recent slump in gas production.
“We’re very optimistic about it,” Easoz said.
There is optimism elsewhere, particularly in and around Donora. The alliance recently received two state loans totaling $2.4 million to help Retal Industries Ltd. of Cyprus move in by the spring of 2017.
Easoz said that is expected to create 100 jobs.
Elsewhere, the production of Barchemy’s health food bars has led to the lease of a building from the alliance, to go along with another that company bought. Easoz said that could mean 100 jobs over the next three years.
Meanwhile, Mon Valley Alliance has engaged a Realtor to sell lots in the Alta Vista Business Park. The 256-acre Fallowfield Township park is located in a Keystone Opportunity Zone.