Blowing it on a hired hand;
The Sioux Falls Development Foundation just hired Lon Clemensen as the new Vice President of Workforce Development. With 30 years of experience in Human Resource management, Clemensen feels he can help fill that worker shortage.
“My plan is to work with education groups, government groups, social services, non-profits and business leaders to talk about those challenges,” Clemensen said.
Great! That’s all we need is another hired gun to tell us what we are doing wrong. And the advice he gives?
Clemensen says Sioux Falls has competitive wages, but the city’s quality of life is the biggest selling point.
LOL. Sure they are competitive, if you are trying to decide whether you want to work at Taco Johns or McDonalds.
“I believe if we get them into the city, show them around and show them all the attributes that we have in the city that’s a major factor,” Clemensen said. “Probably even larger than wages.”
Yeah, try to hide our dirty little secret, low wages. I’m no economist, but it seems people who make a living wage tend have a better quality of life (because they can actually buy things which contributes to our economy).
South Dakota ranks 48 (out of 51) for average salary ($29,420) and when adjusted for cost of living we rank 43 ($33,356). But hey, we don’t have a ‘wage problem’ (this information appears to be from 2014).
Maybe he should hold his ‘family day’ idea in the parking lot of Feeding South Dakota. If it rains there is plenty of room to hold the festivities inside the building, they will just have to rearrange the 40 thousand pounds of mac and cheese.