James McCafferty, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Business Research at Western Washington University, presents an economic profile of Lewis County to members of the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce.
Members of the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce received a detailed presentation on the state of the Lewis County economy Thursday afternoon from James McCafferty, co-director of the Center of Economic and Business Research at Western Washington University.
McCafferty outlined some of the factors that power the local economy while also cautioning the businesspeople in attendance that fast-approaching shifts to automation and a workforce more willing to embrace long commutes will have the greatest impact on industries such as manufacturing and healthcare, which make up some of the largest employment sectors in Lewis County.
“The challenge for communities like yours will be how to harness that mobility while keeping that local feel,” McCafferty said. “With automation, it’s not an issue of wages, it’s that businesses can’t find good applicants to do the jobs. Walmart has developed robots to do sweeping and mopping. Healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture and even construction are all heading more towards automation in one way or another.”
According to McCafferty’s analysis, the healthcare sector is the largest source of employment in Lewis County, followed by retail and manufacturing businesses. The former is expected to have the highest growth rate in coming years, as more than 20 percent of Lewis County residents are at least 65 years of age.
Using data trends to predict which industries will expand and which will contract over the next few years, McCafferty expects Lewis County to net an additional 290 or so jobs over the next two years. That does not take into account continued development at the Port of Centralia or the planned closure of TransAlta coal plants in 2020 and 2025.
Retail outlets account for about 12 percent of employment held in Lewis County, a number that surprised McCafferty. The county is lagging behind the state average when considering that sector’s share of total employment, but another factor to consider is that the labor force participation rate — the percentage of the total population available to work — is 55 percent in Lewis County, 10 percent below the state and national averages and trending downward. This tracks with the rising percentage of older adults living in the county.
Job sectors that are expected to grow in coming years, such as healthcare, are also those that are more likely to require a college degree. According to McCafferty, employment sectors requiring a four-year or postgraduate degree are forecast to grow at a rate of about 1 percent during each of the next two years. Positions that involve a large amount of on-the-job training are expected to become less available, a trend that hasn’t shown up in analyses of other Washington counties. “The nature of work is changing,” McCafferty said.
Chris Thomas, senior communication manager with Providence Health & Services in Southwest Washington, said the data presented by McCafferty reflects what healthcare professionals have observed in recent years. Nurses at some hospitals are able to sit at stations and monitor multiple patients using monitors and other technology. Some surgeries at high-level facilities can be performed by doctors controlling robotic arms — essentially telecommuting to the operating room.
“At the University of Providence (in Great Falls, Montana), we look at how to attract people to needed areas of employment,” Thomas said. “We want to incentivize current caregivers to get specialized degrees to prepare for the future.”
Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Alicia Bull said following McCafferty’s presentation that she feels there are efforts already underway in Lewis County to position more of its residents to enter into the changing labor landscape.
“What resonated with me is something we’ve been talking about for awhile now: Workforce issues and how we combat that through education,” Bull said. “One thing we’re going to see spike here as we continue to expand the ability to get a four-year degree at Centralia College is the value of that degree will go up, and there will be opportunities for those kids to stay local.”
