July 1, 2007

The aging population of the Capital Region -- we rank 12th nationwide in the share of residents 65 and older -- is posing a challenge for employers. 
Many have begun planning for the day when workers will be hard to find. They've surveyed their employees, determining where the most critical shortages will arise, and have already begun recruiting and training replacements. 

Elsewhere, organizations such as CSX Transportation turn to the Internet, recruiting online for engineers and conductors to operate their freight trains. 
"Half our work force is eligible to retire in the next decade," said a spokeswoman for the railroad, which maintains its largest switching facility in Selkirk. The company has nearly 1,400 employees in the region. 

While every region of the country faces the dilemma of replacing retiring baby boomers with job candidates from the much smaller Generation X, the problem is especially acute upstate, with younger adults moving elsewhere. "It's likely to be a factor limiting our ability to grow," said Richard Deitz, senior economist at the Buffalo branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who compiled the data on the Capital Region's aging population. 

The retirements will hit health care and government and education particularly hard. In health care especially, the number of job candidates is expected to decline even as an aging population boosts demand for health services. 

At Troy-based Northeast Health, which operates both Samaritan and Albany Memorial hospitals, younger nurses and other medical staff are being trained in such critical areas as emergency room and intensive care unit duties. 

Management has surveyed staffing throughout the organization and come up with a list of the areas where retirements could cause a labor squeeze. 

"Younger staff go into a one-year mentoring program to develop the judgment and skill to work in the specialty area," said Barbara McCandless, vice president of human resources at Northeast Health. "It's like taking three years of experience and concentrating it in one year." 

At Albany Memorial, 40-year-old Lorinda Brown is learning the skills needed to staff the emergency room. Brown has been a nurse for seven years, after a 10-year career with the Rensselaer Fire Department, where she was an emergency medical technician. 

"I wanted to see what happened in the other half of the treatment" after EMTs delivered patients to the hospital, she said, explaining her career switch. 

"Nursing is becoming more of a second career" and a source of new job candidates, said Nancy Harris, director of Albany Memorial's emergency room. The ER often draws more candidates because the work is not routine and therefore more interesting. 

Filling nursing positions on some of the medical surgical floors, she said, can be "a little bit tougher." 

Convincing older nurses to continue working is one tactic in coping with the shortage. 

Many nurses are able to begin working shorter, flexible schedules by the time they're 58, moving to a schedule where they work an occasional day here and there, by the age of 62 or 63, McCandless said. 

agencies, are facing their own crunch.

Twenty-five percent of our (local) work force is government-related," said Rocco Ferraro, who heads the Capital District Regional Planning Commission in Colonie. "A large number was hired during the 1970s. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize 30 years is the magic number." 

Indeed, nearly a quarter of the employees enrolled in the state retirement system are 55 or older. They can retire at any time, although only those with 30 years of service would get the maximum retirement benefits. 

Half the state employees in the Capital Region are 48 or older. 

Erin Barlow, director of the public information office at the state Department of Civil Service, said New York's fiscal retrenchment and hiring freezes following the 1970s employment increases have left the state with fewer younger employees. 

Now, the department is attempting to convince younger adults that working for the state doesn't mean they'll be "stuck in a cubicle performing one mundane job." 

"We want people, especially the younger work force, to know that there are a variety of opportunities in government, from working as a production manager at a TV studio operated by SUNY to patrolling the state parks as a forest ranger," Barlow said. 

It's an issue other established businesses also face. 

"We're not well known among young people and we need to make sure they understand we're a modern industry with a great future," said Gary Sease, a spokesman for CSX. Traffic has been growing strongly, and with so many people eligible for retirement, the railroad is recruiting heavily. and say the Capital Region has some advantages over other cities with rapidly aging populations. 

State labor markets analyst James Ross said the area actually has seen a net gain in population since 2000, even as other upstate cities continued to lose people. 

And Ferraro, of the regional planning commission, said local employers have a large number of college students from which to recruit. 

"We have a captive group," he said. "Can we retain them?" 

In the past, they've tended to leave the Capital Region for larger metropolitan areas, particularly New York City and Boston, as soon as they graduate, Ferraro said. But he said when they're ready to have families and put down roots, usually by the time they hit 30, the Capital Region may be more appealing. 

Ferraro said Albany often is compared to Austin, but that Texas city has a big advantage in holding on to young students after college graduation that Albany lacks. 

Austin is relatively exciting compared with the small towns in Texas from which many of its young people come. In Albany, students often come from New York City and its suburbs, or from other larger metropolitan areas along the East Coast. 

The Capital Region loses younger people, leaving it with a disproportionate number of baby boomers and older adults. 

But many of those baby boomers may want, or need, to keep on working.
"Not everyone wants to retire, not everyone can retire," said Gail Breen, executive director of the Fulton/Montgomery/ Schoharie Counties Workforce Development Board in Amsterdam. "They may want shorter hours. They may be taking care of an aging parent." 

"You get a lot of people from the state, teachers, police forces, retiring young," said Dan Gentile, who heads the Capital Regional Workforce Investment Board in Albany. "They're in their 50s." 

They could be "retooled," he said, learning new skills and continuing to work. source new workers could be the Capital Region's expanding technology sector. Organizations such as International Sematech likely will bring many workers with them. Other companies may move here to be near Sematech or other large technology employers. 

The labor crunch could also lead to a wage gain as employers compete for candidates. 

"Companies ... can offer higher wages, up to a point where they still remain competitive," said Deitz, the Federal Reserve economist. 

Wages in Capital Region counties are below the statewide average, and only Albany County's average weekly wage of $801 topped the U.S. average of $784, according to a U.S. Department of Labor survey released last week. 
The higher wages could encourage older adults to continue working, while keeping younger people after they graduate. Or they may not. 

"You go to Boston, New York, Colorado or Seattle, and you realize the average age is 25 years or less. That's when it really strikes you how much more mature" the Capital Region is, said McCandless, the Northeast Health official. "How do we retain that talent and make the community dynamic enough that (younger adults) want to stay here?" Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.