CUED

Training and Recruitment: Opportunities and Needs in the Pilsen Area -
A Survey of Selected Industries

This report is part of such an effort in the Pilsen area in Chicago. It presents the results of a survey of local employers about their recruitment and training needs. Findings are intended to inform discussions and choices for the area. Commissioned by the Pilsen Development Corporation (PDC), under a grant from Community Development Block Grant funds managed by the Department of Planning, the survey was conducted by the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago (CUED), which also contributed with part of the costs. A separate labor profile of the area was also prepared by CUED as part of this undertaking.

Besides presenting the information provided by employers, the report offers some insights about possible actions and strategies addressing the needs and opportunities identified by the survey.

Methodology: The survey targeted industries with an important presence in the area. A list of 121 firms was developed. A total of 55 agreed to be interviewed. The latter employed 6,297 persons or about one-quarter of total target area employment.

Since this is not a random survey, findings cannot be extrapolated to the entire area or to all industries. In spite of this, the group of respondents included an important cross section of industries and results can be used with due considerations to draw general hypotheses about area employers. They can be also used as a reference point in planning efforts in training and recruitment.

Overall Findings:

Job opportunities
Sizeable job opportunities are available in local firms from worker turnover and, to a lesser degree, from expansion and retirement. These opportunities can be tapped by organizations interested in increasing the percent of local jobs filled by neighborhood residents. More than half of the firms actually engage in efforts to recruit local residents for two main reasons. First, recruitment of office personnel is often hampered by the location of the firm. Residents would not be affected by this. And second, employers feel that worker reliability is improved with the hiring of neighborhood residents and their relatives.

Recruitment
Employers rely largely on word of mouth for recruitment of their workforce and are generally satisfied with this process. Newspaper advertising, job recruitment agencies, and other mechanisms are used more selectively or as a second alternative.

The experiences of firms with job recruitment agencies were limited and employers had mixed feelings about them. While some firms were satisfied with specific agencies or with some aspects of their services, most employers had not worked with them and others were not impressed by their performance. Only one local community-based recruitment agency was mentioned by employers.

Benefits associated with agencies included convenience of services, screening, finding candidates for openings, and recruitment of residents. Problems included cost, poor quality of referrals, unnecessary pressure to take their referrals, and limited pools of candidates. Employers preferred not-for-profit agencies with a quick turnaround and a close knowledge of the needs of employers, charging no fees, doing good screening, providing candidates for all types of jobs, and offering assistance with the training needs of applicants.

A majority of respondents indicated having problems recruiting workers for certain occupations. These occupations varied much among firms, with some concentration in skilled and semiskilled positions. The main problems had to do with finding qualified or experienced candidates, and with the skill and language levels of applicants.

Turnover in local firms was large and firms were anxious to improve retention of their employees.

Training
Nearly three-fifths of the firms provided on the job training. A larger proportion had some form of off-site training. On-the-job training was provided by peer workers and supervisors. Off-site training consisted mainly of seminars or workshops, and trade school or union apprenticeship programs. Very few firms were considering organizing additional training. More than half of them, however, mentioned some gaps including basic education, language skills, computer training, and work ethics. Firms mentioned cost, union contracts, turnover, and previous negative experiences as some of the reasons why they did not engage in more training for their workers.

Needs and Recommendations
Firms see neighborhood residents as more desirable employees than workers from outside because proximity is expected to increase reliability and because residents will not object to the character of the neighborhood. Neighborhood recruitment agencies should emphasize this in their outreach to firms.

On the other hand, residents are seen as relatively unskilled. Employers are reluctant to train their workers much because turnover will deprive firms of the benefits. Thus, much more job training has to take place outside of the job context.

Five central areas of need were identified by employers, namely basic education, language and vocational training, recruitment of qualified employees, and recruitment of local residents.

Employers pointed to the need for a general improvement in the basic education and language skills of local residents as well as their workers. They also saw the need to increase vocational training, starting with high school students. Many employers had difficulties recruiting qualified workers. Whether or not recruitment agencies were the best source of help was unclear. Major improvements in their image and services would be required before employers decided to rely more on them for this need. Agencies such as the Spanish Coalition for Jobs have been able to develop steady relationships with local firms. Some improvements in their services could convince firms to rely more on this source. Recruitment of local residents for job openings in these firms was not limited to neighborhood agencies. Word of mouth and newspaper advertising were also used by firms to attract local workers. Job recruitment agencies, however, offered a unique combination that was appealing to employers. Not only could they refer qualified residents and provide screening services to the firm, but they could also offer to the worker counseling, training and other local programs of support. Also, they could help the firm with other needs. This combination, however, was a goal rather than an actual characteristic as the services of many agencies were limited to job referrals. Special efforts should be made to fulfill some of the expectations and unmet needs of the businesses. Language training, basic education, and job training, thus, emerged as necessary components of any efforts to increase local hiring by local firms. Recruitment agencies should double their efforts to match the needs of employers with qualified local residents. Meanwhile, training and educational programs should identify areas of need of firms such as computer training, training of salespeople and others, and develop combined on the job training and classroom instruction programs specifically tailored to their needs.

Other needs identified by employers include:
Information about available training specific to their jobs, scholarships and other assistance that would take the cost off their backs, organization of short seminars and workshops on multiple topics from work ethics to safety, developing links with local or other organizations that could provide for some of their immediate needs (e.g., organizing basic education and language classes for their workers, upgrading the skills of current positions), consulting services in specific needs such as computer literacy and, in some cases, organization of new training programs.

These needs call for brokering services from community agencies, for organization of additional training programs in close cooperation with the firms, or for improvements in existing training efforts to fit the most specific needs of employers. In fact, results suggest that available programs should keep a close contact with firms to make sure that trainees get the proper hands-on training and that curricula integrate more of the elements needed in real jobs.

Along these lines, local players should consider developing links between firms and local institutions providing language, basic skills, and other training, brokering training services for employers, organizing common training programs (employees from various firms, for instance, could be brought together, and specific programs could be tailored to meet their common needs).

Such efforts could be carried out by sector, particularly for industries with many firms in the area.

A unique opportunity presents itself with the projected training center of the City Colleges for the area. Local organizations should make sure that the training needs of neighborhood employers, short and long-term, are included in the agenda of the center. To this end, contacts with the firms or committees of them could be used.

Finally, many employers emphasized that the word of mouth grapevine worked very well for them in supplying their firms with the needed labor. Hence the importance for area strategists to devise ways for penetrating these grapevines or for job recruitment agencies to learn from the advantages of this system.

This website is maintained by Cedric Williams, Manager System Services,
UIC-Center for Urban Economic Development