A new 2023 report talks about a big issue in Maine: the number of people in the workforce is not growing as it should. The Maine Center for Economic Policy made this report, and James Myall, who works there, is the person behind it. He spends about six months each year making this report to understand how Maine’s economy and workers are doing.
In 2023, Myall is worried because the number of people working in Maine is not increasing; it’s staying the same or even decreasing. He says Maine needs more workers, especially for important services like taking care of kids and older people, working in education (like driving buses and being education technicians), and the service industry. Maine has a lot of older people, and each year, more people retire than new people join the workforce.
Myall thinks this issue has been going on for a long time because finding affordable houses in Maine is getting harder. He wants policymakers to do a few things: build more houses, make it easier for people to use their work qualifications from other states, and encourage people from different backgrounds to move to Maine.
The report includes stories from 12 different Mainers to give a human touch to the numbers. One person is Armando, a 31-year-old from Angola who has been in Maine for seven months. He wants to work, but getting a work permit has been a slow process. Armando dreams of working at a bank or becoming a lawyer and staying in Maine forever.
Kim, an education technician from Oxford County, is another person in the report. She has worked in the same district for almost 21 years and makes $19.83 per hour. Kim joined the report to tell people that workers like her are not getting paid enough. She loves her job but finds it hard to keep up with the rising costs because the pay hasn’t increased enough. Kim worries that if things don’t change, there won’t be enough people to educate the kids who are the future.
The report aims to show the challenges Maine faces with its workforce and hopes to get people talking about solutions.
