Help wanted

An 8 percent unemployment rate might be bad for the individuals affected and the economy at large, but if you're hiring, this should be your dream.

Mountains of applications. Scores of qualified workers with scaled-back demands.

Or maybe not.

Janis Herschkowitz recently received more than 300 applications for about five jobs at PRL Inc., a Lebanon County firm that provides castings to the nuclear and defense industries.

But in her initial survey of the crowd, Herschkowitz said, she did not see the skills she was hoping to find. For example, she saw nobody with experience in nondestructive testing, a process of checking castings for flaws.

"That's a sad commentary," said Herschkowitz, PRL's president. It reflects the decline of vocational education, she explained.

Her experience underscores what workforce observers, especially in manufacturing, have long cited as an Achilles' heel for Central Pennsylvania - a shortage of skilled workers in certain high-demand fields.

"We kind of waved the white flag on skilled workers some time ago," said Tom Mills, president and chief executive officer of Gichner Systems Group in Dallastown, York County, which designs and builds specialized shelters for the military. Instead, the company has resorted to hiring unskilled workers and training them, Mills said. Finding those unskilled workers has become easier since the unemployment rate spiked, he said.

The sour economy has pushed a handful of skilled workers to make long commutes to Gichner, including a welder who drives an hour to work, Mills said. But overall, the picture has not improved much. Gichner is looking for about 60 workers.

Not everyone is having this kind of trouble. Brent Andy, a contracts manager at the staffing company Aerotek Inc., said finding workers in some trades has gotten easier since 2007.
"It was pretty difficult to find a good commercial electrician ... that fit my clients' needs," he said.

Now, the problem is placing those electricians, he said. Andy works in the Dauphin County office of Maryland-based Aerotek.

It may be a matter of recruiting, too.

Gerald Bonnar said he is looking for 75 college graduates with information-technology degrees to work in the Mechanicsburg area. Bonnar works for Logistics Solutions Inc., a New Jersey company that provides staffing to the information-technology industry. He was surprised that his initial outreach to a handful of schools yielded only about 35 resumes, Bonnar said. More applications came in response to an ad on the Web site monster.com, but most students who live outside of Central Pennsylvania expressed reluctance to move here, he said.

"In fact, many of the students are sending us resumes on the basis that since we are in a hiring mode we probably have jobs closer to their desired location," Bonnar wrote in an e-mail.

Also, a high grade-point average requirement may have cut out more people than planned, Bonnar said. He now plans to reach out to more Pennsylvania colleges.

Precision Custom Components and Voith Hydro are bright spots in York County because they have been hiring, but they still are trying to fill some slots, said Tom Santone, a union representative. Precision makes large parts for the nuclear industry; Voith manufactures components for hydropower plants.