If you live in Butler County and want a job, odds are you’ve got one.

The most recent unemployment figures for Butler County and the surrounding region show high employment and healthy job availability locally.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry reports that Butler County’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent in July of 2018, down from 3.8 percent in June. In a news release on the figures, the department notes that Butler County tied Allegheny County for the lowest unemployment rate out of the seven counties making up the Pittsburgh-centric region.

The department conducts seasonal adjustments to county unemployment rates set in conjunction with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to Walter Nichols, a statistician with the state’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis. Without that seasonal adjustment, the bureau reports a 4.1 percent unemployment rate.

Scott Meckley, an analyst at the same center as Nichols, said those month-by-month county unemployment figures aren’t really to be trusted, due to their volatility.

“Any tiny little changes with the seasonal adjustments wreak havoc,” Meckley said. “Don’t read too much into the seasonal adjustments.”

The federal organization determines unemployment rates by calling people and asking whether they have worked in the last four weeks. If they haven’t, the caller asks if they’ve looked for a job in that time frame. Those that say yes are used to generate unemployment estimates. This process was described by Robin Hidick, a senior economist at bureau.

The state organization uses those figures, along with additional research methods such as employer reports, to generate the seasonal prognoses.

But what the 3.7 percent figure, the 4.1 percent figure and more long-term estimates show for the region are an overall good job situation for the county and the Pittsburgh region, Meckley said.

He said Pittsburgh and Butler County benefit from high populations and diverse industries, and that today’s figure matches historical trends.

“You’re right about at that perfect spot where job seekers and available employment match up pretty much perfectly,” Meckley said. “Four percent is probably right about on.”

Meckley noted that the Pittsburgh region has lower than average unemployment compared with the state average and is roughly in line with national figures.

Help wanted

Stan Kosciuszko, president of Butler County’s Chamber of Commerce, said he believes Butler County is in a healthy place employment-wise, but he worries that the low rate indicates that employers are struggling to find employees.

Kosciuszko said he saw over a dozen signs advertising job openings on a recent drive around the county.

“I said look at this, the unemployment rate must have gone down to almost nothing,” Kosciuszko said.

He said a lack of qualified candidates for jobs is a problem locally, and that technical training and workforce development is the answer.

“I think what Western Pennsylvania does have is a very dedicated workforce,” Kosciuszko said. “We have a lot of very good employees and a very good work ethic. People are taught that ethic here when they’re young.”

If they’re not taught those skills as children, local unions and workforce development groups are oftentimes picking up the slack later in peoples’ lives.

Jim Panei, president of the UAW Local 3303 union at AK Steel, said his union offers apprenticeships for fields like iron-working, machining and high-voltage technical work.

“We have apprenticeship programs for all of those here in Butler right now,” Panei said.

He credited President Donald Trump’s tariffs with creating more work for the plant by making its stock of electrical steel more exclusive in the domestic market.

The plant, he said, has to turn to contract workers in areas where they simply can’t find enough apprentices and journeymen to fill their needs.

“We need a lot more,” he said.

Training programs

Lisa Campbell, the interim director of workforce development at Butler County Community College, said her division at the college trains about 15,000 people a year. In recent years, they’ve centered their focus around training residents to get certifications in various industries.

“It doesn’t matter what industry it is,” Campbell said. “Everybody is looking for additional workers.”

Campbell said they’re doing similar work as local unions, who give apprenticeships and other learning experiences to workers as career paths for the uninitiated. She pointed to the new Steamfitters Technology Center in Jackson Township, where people learn welding skills.

BC3 restarted its welding program in the last year, according to Kelly McKissick, an education and programming coordinator in Campbell’s department. McKissick said the program in past years had a roughly 50 percent employment rate based on what students reported immediately after finishing. They believe the true number is higher than that.

Similar self-reporting indicates that BC3’s pre-apprenticeship manufacturing program is landing a roughly 68 percent employment rate upon completion of the program.

“Employers actually come to the class and begin recruiting while we’re still in session,” McKissick said. “We let them in to talk to students, and sometimes they have them fill out applications and conduct interviews right there on the spot.”

Asked pointedly about Butler County’s low employment rate, McKissick had a guess.

“There is a lot of industry out there,” she said. “There are close to 300 manufacturing facilities out there, and they all seem to be hiring.”