OCTOBER 2016
CHAMBER CENTRAL
A PUBLICATION OF THE WESTMORELAND COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
CALENDAR OF EVENTS OCTOBER 6 7:45 am - MBPA Chapter Networking Breakfast, Dick’s Diner, Murrysville
OCTOBER 13 11:30 am - Awards Luncheon & Annual Business Meeting, Ramada Hotel & Conference Center, Greensburg
OCTOBER 17 9:00 am - Sporting Clays Shoot, Seven Springs Mountain Resort
OCTOBER 18
7:45 am - Networking Breakfast, Courtyard by Marriott, Greensburg
OCTOBER 19 8:00 am - Wage & Labor Laws Educational Session, Greensburg Country Club 5:00 pm - Chamber B.A.S.H., The Oak Country Peddler, Greensburg
OCTOBER 20
5:00 pm - Ribbon Cutting, Spa 309 Salon & Boutique, Greensburg
OCTOBER 25
7:45 am - Coffee & Connections, Harmon House Care Center, Mount Pleasant
OCTOBER 28
8:00 am - Ambassador Committee Meeting *Events held in Chamber office unless otherwise noted.
How Is Your Birthday Impacting Our Workforce? By Chad Amond, President, Westmoreland County Chamber of Commerce It’s been said that birthdays are good for your health. The more you have, the longer you tend to live. And while that might be true and very positive, the fact is Westmoreland County is having a disproportionate number of birthdays among those who are entering their ‘silver years’ and we’re not replacing our older population with younger residents. Our county is aging at a rate that far exceeds much of the rest of Pennsylvania and most of our nation. And that fact presents significant challenges for our future economic outlook.
retirements, many within the manufacturing industry. By 2020 about 30% of our population will be age 65 or older. The potential loss of workers will place enormous stress and strain on the local economy, and the county will experience an estimated population decline of nearly 3% annually during that same time period.
To exacerbate the migration issue, our education system is often misaligned with the true workforce needs of the region. For decades, parents, students and educators have focused and defined success by advocating sending all students to college for a degree in most anything. While college is great for a variety of Being part of the 10-county region of southwest- students and for a variety of reasons, the result ern Pennsylvania, Westmoreland County has has been a labor force lacking the skills for reendured the impacts of a declining population gionally available jobs. Generally speaking, this and relatively stagnant economy for the past has forced "well educated" residents to leave decade or more. Like many regions across the the region to find a job in their field of expertise, United States, southwestern Pennsylvania is all the while reducing the younger demographic dealing with an aging population resulting in in Westmoreland and southwestern Pennsylvasignificant impact on our labor force and on our nia. There are some bright spots. Recently, communities. But Westmoreland County and Pittsburgh has seen a modest turnaround from our region have not benefitted from the migrathis affect with the surge of tech-based compation growth many other U.S. regions have over the past 20 years. This lack of positive net migra- nies that tend to draw young professionals like Google and Uber. tion has created an "old" population and labor force. Over the next ten years, our county faces Continued on page 3 the loss of nearly 10-15% of its workforce due to
THE WESTMORELAND COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE RECOGNIZES FOTORECORD PRINT CENTER AS THE “OFFICIAL PRINTER” OF THE CHAMBER CENTRAL NEWSLETTER. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICES.
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