- [Announcer] The following presentation was made possible by Bank of America.

- [Anne-Marie] Tonight on this Living St. Louis Special, we're looking into what the 2022 State of the St. Louis Workforce report is telling us about our region's economy and employment trends and what's needed for a pathway to job growth.

- We need to work on the 95% of our region that is born in the United States, and then the 5% that's foreign born, we need to grow that too.

- [Anne-Marie] We talk about the long term impact startups have had on our region.

- We're a significant player, not just for the St Louis region, but for the state.

- [Anne-Marie] And we examine a booming industry that barely existed 20 years ago.

- The geospatial industry was this 10 years ago, It was this five years ago, and it's exponentially grown as far as the opportunities.

- [Anne-Marie] It's all next on this living St. Louis Pathways to Work Special.

(upbeat music) In September on the campus of Florescent Valley, St. Louis Community College presented the 2022 state of the St. Louis Workforce report.

For the past 14 years, the college has provided this annual report as a way to provide a comprehensive overview of the economic and workforce trends in the St. Louis region.

- We'll also look at some of the employment barriers.

We've been asking this question for the most part since the beginning.

- [Anne-Marie] 436 Local companies in 16 industry sectors were surveyed for the 2022 report.

Of those companies, 32% added employees in the last 12 months while 19% cut employees.

Employers are optimistic for the coming year, 53% responded they plan to increase their workforce, but a barrier that may make that difficult is the shortage of skilled applicants.

- What I'm trying to impress upon you is we have a choice, we have a choice right now of what we can do, of where we can invest in people and invest in their communities which makes them more competitive, more able to find jobs faster.

- [Anne-Marie] And just like last year, the skilled trades, patient care and manufacturing are the work sectors experiencing the highest skill shortage, but there are promising pathways to job growth in our region.

For the first time the 2022 State of the St. Louis Workforce report includes data on startups confirming that startups are a significant part of the local and regional economy.

For the last decade, startups have contributed an average of 35,000 new jobs each year in the state of Missouri, and that impact of job growth can be seen in the St. Louis region with the addition of almost 15,000 new jobs by first time startups just in 2021.

Just this regional contribution, those 15,000 jobs account for 36.7% of new jobs created in the entire state.

And I don't wanna gloss it over, being an entrepreneur, working for a startup, it's hard work, it's a high risk business.

Success is definitely not guaranteed and not every business will continue to grow, but startups are where new jobs in the economy can happen.

And what does any job need?

Appropriate skills.

Brooke Butler looks at a program for young entrepreneurs who with any luck will be the future job creators in our region.

- [Man] Well, it didn't take long for Jimmy to set himself up in business with his mother's help.

Now all he needs is some customers.

- [Narrator] The lemonade stand, some might consider it a staple childhood experience.

Kids might not know it at the time, but they're learning some of the fundamentals to entrepreneurship.

- There's so many pieces of a business that are equivalent to the lemonade stand.

- [Narrator] But these kids are taking the lemonade stand to the next level.

- [Brooke] Are you excited to make some money?

- I'm gonna swim in it.

- [Narrator] Young Biz Kids Day gathers dozens of aspiring entrepreneurs for an opportunity to set up and operate their own business.

- I like to tell parents when your kids are really good at sports, you take them to a community center, you put 'em on a sports team.

When they're really good at dance, you go take them and put them on a dance team.

Well, where do you take those entrepreneurial kids that have that entrepreneurial book, you bring them to Young Biz Kids, so that we can help them to cultivate what it is.

- [Narrator] Ariel Briggs is the founder of Young Biz Kid's Day which started in St. Louis, but has now spread to six other states.

And it all got started because of her own biz kid.

Her son, Mikey Wren got inspired to pursue his own business after a successful run with no other than a lemonade stand.

- So what we did, we sit up next to a shoe store and the shoe store, the new Jordans was releasing that day, so everybody was standing outside waiting on those new Jordans.

They was like, it's hot I'm gonna go gemme some lemonade.

We right there and I made $1,200 in three days off of selling lemonade.

- [Interviewer] $1,200 in three days?

- Yes.

- [Narrator] Mikey could have bought a PlayStation, or a new bike, something similar to what the average eight year old would spend $1,200 on, instead he invested in vending machines.

- That idea came about because me and my mom was leaving summer camp and I was like, mom, can I have something at the vending machine?

And she was like, no, but she said all the money that you put into those machines goes to the owner, but if you had your own, all the money would go to you.

So I took the money from the lemonade stands, it still wasn't just enough yet.

So I ended up sacrificing not getting gifts for Christmas just so I was able to get the rest of the money for my vending machine company.

I started off with two vending machines, now today currently I own 12.

- [Narrator] In fact, he is the youngest person to own his own vending machine.

- [Interviewer] And Ariel, do you have a business background?

Were you in business before this?

How did you start to guide him?

- I've been an entrepreneur all of my life.

Middle school, high school, I braided hair, I sold candy, so I didn't know the term of what I was, but I knew that I was an entrepreneur.

I did not have a business background, but once I started business with him, I started taking classes and finding out anything that I could about business.

I started developing a kind of curriculum where I was like, I'm gonna walk you through this business plan.

We're gonna walk through market research, we're gonna walk through just how to do research on starting a business.

We started that process, it worked for him.

So I start helping other parents walk through the same process on when a child comes to you and say, I wanna start a business, what does that look like?

- So what does it look like to start your own business?

While some with more resources might have an easier way in to their desired market, there are more traditional routes.

Here at St. Louis Community College, Phyllis Ellison with the Workforce Solutions Group explains how entrepreneurship can fit into almost any field of study and how vital it is for the health of the St. Louis Workforce.

And when you hear about those kind of high demand skilled jobs, I don't necessarily think about entrepreneurship, so is there a need for entrepreneurs?

- There is a need for entrepreneurs.

What we're seeing is that for the state of Missouri, first year startups are contributing over 40,000 new jobs every year.

We're a significant player, not just for the St Louis region, but for the state.

And so to me, if we're looking at the State of the St. Louis Workforce, understanding where those new jobs are coming from, what fields are they in?

And then it starts to help the rest of us understand from an education standpoint, from those entrepreneur support organizations, where is that help needed?

And so when you start thinking about what skills are needed to support those startups, that entrepreneur that took the chance to start something new.

I love the idea of even the lemonade stand, it is creativity, it is reliability and showing up for work.

It is communication skills, critical thinking, problem solving, those skills are critical.

Whether we're training entrepreneurs or we are training the workforce to support those entrepreneurs as they start their companies, those skills are parallel to what larger companies need as well.

- [Narrator] But for some participating in Young Biz Kids Day, it doesn't seem like entrepreneurship is a career that they will be pursuing, at least no plans to quit their future day jobs.

- 'Cause I wanna be like a veterinarian when I grow up, so this will be fun to do it as a side business.

- Actually I'm gonna do it on the side, but I think I'm actually gonna go into nursing.

- I see me going into real estate.

- [Interviewer] Even Mikey has other plans for his career, but for him entrepreneurship goes beyond simply earning a living.

- So entrepreneurship is more of a craft than running a business, it's a way of mindset.

It's the way that you think, it's the way that you move.

It's how you develop yourself, that's what entrepreneurship is, it's not really just running a business.

So I see myself perfecting that gift that I have of entrepreneurship.

- [Interviewer] Do you see college in your future?

- It really depends, I don't see paying for college in my future, I see going to college for free in my future.

- [Narrator] Spoken like a true CEO and Mikey has invested a lot in his natural business capabilities.

After his successful start with Mikey's Munchies Vending machines, he decided to write and publish two different children's books about entrepreneurship.

- When we started to brainstorm about him writing a book, he wanted a imaginary character which is his briefcase.

But then I was like, well I'm the one that taught you about business.

He's like, yeah but don't nobody wanna listen to a mom talk about business.

Mikey doesn't like to tell everybody, but I am the briefcase that's inside the book.

When he put the briefcase in, it worked because all the kids love the briefcase.

When we would show up to events, they would like where's Biz?

Where's Biz the briefcase?

And I laughed 'cause I'm like, well I'm Biz the briefcase.

But they really wanted to see the briefcase.

Are y'all ready?

(cheerful music) - [Interviewer] Do you really see the connections being made?

Like you said you were an entrepreneur all your life, but you really didn't know those terms.

These are young kids, do you see the connections being made?

- Yes, yes I do, it's a educational program which the kids don't get that far.

They think that they're just selling, but they're gonna see the kids networking.

They're gonna see them making eye contact, they're gonna see them making pitch, and then they're gonna be applying financial literacy because before the event, they had to set a smart goal on top of customer service, on top of standing up straight 'cause the goal is for them to learn these skill sets through business, but us as parents knowing that these skills are gonna transfer to the rest of their life and they're gonna be able to use those skills.

- The startup and innovation community in St. Louis has diverse funding opportunities in the tech industry and one specific sector.

Geospatial technology is backed by regional efforts to supply their talent pipeline.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency is one of the region's largest employers.

And with the construction of the nearly 2 billion NGA headquarters in North St. Louis, they are leading the headlines when it comes to geospatial news.

But as the Workforce reports states, the broader regional geospatial industry supports 27,000 direct and indirect jobs at more than 350 companies and produces a $5 billion economic impact.

And keep in mind, this impact is coming from an industry that barely existed 20 years ago.

To better understand the geospatial industry and its potential for job growth in our region, I had a conversation with Andy Dearing of Geo Future's Initiative.

What is geospatial?

It's very niche.

- It is.

- Tech is huge.

- Yes.

- And this is a big small part of what tech is.

- It is, it is and so geospatial you hear things called geographic information systems or GIS.

You'll hear all these terms used and that's kind of the core science behind what we're doing.

But the way it impacts you and me is when you go and you actually order some food on Uber Eats, or when you're ordering a vehicle on Uber and wait, you're able to interact with, wait what are drivers around you?

Or what are restaurants that are around you, knowing how to connect those pieces, knowing where you need to go and all those things.

They're all using geospatial information, or you're going to a destination.

How does it know how long it takes based on traffic and input?

Well, we're all consumers of that data, but we're also producing that information to say, oh wait, we slowed down at 6440 at the science center.

- So like ways, - Yes, exactly.

- That's telling me that there's an accident up here and this is how long it'll be.

- That's all geospatial technology and things that the underpinning of that.

And so when we think about it, as you look at across any industry sector, whether it be finance, whether it be agriculture, whether it be healthcare or others, they're all using location of information, whether it be location of people, location of things that are out there.

And we can be a leader for that, there's nobody out there that's... You have Silicon Valley and it's all tech and there's lots of things that are going on, but you can get lost in the shuffle.

For companies and organizations setting up and standing out here in St. Louis, we have the unique sets of skills.

We've got all the other ingredients, whether it be venture capital, whether it be access to other industry types like we're building... And that's what Geo Futures is through greater St. Louis Inc is doing is building that opportunity around that.

- Gimme a little bit more detail of the Geo Futures, what is that and what does that mean and how does it relate to Greater St. Louis?

- So Geo Futures was a roadmap that was developed to say, how do we become the global geospatial hub here in St. Louis.

Creating jobs, creating innovation, starting new businesses and really standing out there and saying, hey, this is the next big thing for St. Louis for us to take advantage of.

- Have I had my head in the sand?

I don't recall hearing anything about geospatial until the whole talk about NGA and announcing that they were gonna stay here and build in North St. Louis, did I just miss that or did that really sort of come to surface then?

- You probably grew up, your neighbors might have been geospatial professionals at NGA growing up, but they kept it very quiet.

And granted, you'll hear a lot of news of them being the spy agency and those sorts of things.

Again, they've been here in St. Louis since World War II, they made the aeronautical maps down at the Globe Building which is kind of near the T-Rex facility downtown.

And they've been quietly down by the river.

They have a couple of installations that have been here and they operate in the quiet, now they've been very much more open about how to partner and that's why you hear a lot more of it in the news.

And you hear an update once a week.

- Why, why, why now?

- It's because of the location of their campus and knowing that, wait we're locating in a disinvested area, historically disinvested area.

And the opportunity to actually do it the right way, working with the community, working with geo futures to help figure out how do we develop career pathways.

- So where are we in the skills department in this region?

Do we have the skills, do we have the workforce?

And if we do, do we have the jobs or if we don't, how do we get the jobs here without having the workforce?

I guess what comes first, the workforce or the actual employment, the jobs, the companies?

- So the interesting thing is especially since the pandemic, the need for technical workforce has increased.

And that is not slowing down by any means, so we have the demand, it's already there.

And we're not dissimilar than any other metro area that's out there on technical workforce.

Where we are positioned is we have multiple partners.

And so what we think about with the Geo Futures roadmap is and it's a power strip, it's an outlet.

It's got multiple outlets for people to plug into because of the demand and need.

The geospatial industry was this 10 years ago, it was this five years ago.

And it's exponentially grown as far as the opportunities, job openings, career paths.

- Because the technology has advanced so much.

- Yes and what we're doing here in St. Louis where people can plug in and grow their business, or they can plug in and support what NGA is doing, or what they're plugging in and supporting with nontraditional or non-national security.

- So is there an effort to go into these schools, grab them where they are starting at the youngest levels and educating them in that stem area?

- Yes, and there's quite a few, and NGA is the catalyst behind this.

But they're not the only partner and they cannot be the only partner for us to be a hub around geospatial.

They've done a great job of saying, we have a study and they'll be very honest.

Versus our adversaries, the U.S. is falling woefully behind around stem graduates.

And it's becoming a national security issue of saying, if we don't graduate enough stem graduates out of any of our institutions, we are gonna fall behind our adversaries and they are going to be advanced against us.

What they did here in St. Louis is they said, how do we start early?

They have an initiative called K-16 R which is starting at kindergarten through secondary education through hey, wait, I might be in a different career field, but I want to get in this career field.

How do I through retirement, how do we upskill and reskill and grow the talent base using and setting that up for success here in St. Louis?

And we have the right ingredients, so there are programs now that are set up with St. Louis public schools, with Desi, with others that have said, hey, we hear about this geospatial thing, but what are those training and skills that are needed from K-four?

What are they needed five-eight?

And start working on what stem skills, or what hey, geography or other skills that are might needed to inspire youth to say, this is what a career looks like in 10, or 20 years in geospatial.

And start getting them inspired earlier to where they see themselves either in this field or in some sort of science field beyond that.

- Is this a a four year degree?

Is this a certificate?

What does this look like?

If someone wants to go in this field where if they think I have to be in school for seven years to figure out all of this stuff might look a little daunting, but what do you need to get there?

- All the above and so the great thing about the pathways that are there to get a job in geospatial, you can have a high school certificate, Gateway Global, for example.

They are the only high school accredited geospatial, or geo certificate that's out there, only one in the nation.

- So what happens when they graduate?

- They can be partner up directly with a company called Maxar, which you might have seen Maxar on the news when you're looking at satellite imagery of the Ukraine that's coming from them.

- Okay, so a high school graduate with that certificate can be partnered up with Maxar for employment and then continued training, and education to expand their career?

- Yes, we've gotta scale that because there's over a thousand open jobs in our geospatial industry today here in St. Louis that need to be filled.

- And you're still trying to get more companies to come?

- Absolutely, absolutely and this industry's moving so fast.

If you look back 20 years ago, there were job descriptions called cartographers, people that made wonderful pretty maps, right, or intelligent maps.

Now we can do that all in computers.

Well, what are those skills that are needed today versus what were needed 20 years ago and what are the skills that we need in 10 years, 15 years versus what we have today?

- Right, so you're not even trying to get people involved in what's happening now, It's looking forward of where those.

- Absolutely.

- That career's going.

- Yes.

(soft music) - There are a few issues that divide Americans and lawmakers, and we're not gonna go down that rabbit hole, but we are going to talk about one, immigration, specifically around jobs and the economy.

There is a belief for concern that immigrants take away jobs and opportunity from native born Americans, but the current labor shortage in the U.S. is no secret.

Immigrants can help fill key employment gaps in our economy, especially as our aging population retires.

In this next story, Ruth Ezell visits a company whose workforce is getting a boost from our newest neighbors.

- [Ruth] At Control Devices LLC in Fenton, 21 year old colleague Bakhtyar is an assembly employee.

Bakhtyar came to the U.S. with his family from Afghanistan in 2020 through the Special Immigrant Visa Program.

They qualified because Bakhtyar's father was a soldier working with U.S. forces.

The oldest of six children, Bakhtyar is grateful for the opportunity to start life anew here, away from the ongoing dangers gripping his homeland.

- And we can't do anything.

We go to the school, we're scared, when we come back, we're scared.

Before like five o'clock, so the darkness is coming, we need should be at home not outside because all around the country is Taliban.

They kill us, they kidnap.

- [Ruth] Bakhtyar is one of several Afghans working in control devices and he provides a bridge to those who don't speak English.

- We have meeting with the leader, supervisor, sometime with HR.

So I can explain it to every speech, explain what they talk about.

Every day, we have meeting before we start our shift.

So we have meeting about 10 and five minutes, and I need to explain about everybody what we talk about.

I'm helping also with the line, so I need to explain the work order when we start... Every line we have work order, I need to explain because they don't know what they say.

So I need to show the number, how to take the parts and I show him everything and then they start their work.

- Every procedure and process in the building for assembly and test of the valves we manufacture has a work instructions assigned to it.

- [Ruth] Control Devices, CEO Jim Norris keeps the operation running smoothly with the help of visual tools that assist all workers regardless of English proficiency.

The company is the world's leading manufacturer of specialty valves and devices that control the flow of air, gases and liquids.

Norris notes a big challenge Afghan employees face beyond language.

- It can be also transportation, right.

Not all of 'em have a car, the ability to get a car.

So a lot of 'em commute together that work in the area.

So they try and schedule their work shifts together, so they can all get to work and get home.

That's probably a bigger issue than communication is just transportation.

You come here and then you've gotta try and get a job and then you've gotta get to the job.

- [Ruth] But the multinational diversity of the Control Device's workforce illustrates the company's decades of experience, incorporating people born outside the United States.

- We benefited from the buzzing immigrants coming in and they came in, they were great people to work with and they did a great job with the company.

A lot of 'em are still here, most of 'em are U.S. citizens now.

And so it's always been such a good relationship and a great program that's worked out that when we had the opportunity to hire some of the Afghans, we said, yeah sure, of course.

- Attracting foreign-born workers and helping them become a success is the mission of the St. Louis Mosaic project.

And the head of Mosaic says, as those foreign born workers succeed, so does the region.

Why is their presence so important in our region?

- So our region has been stagnating in terms of population, our GDP, our growth, our rankings.

And so for us to be a thriving, growing region, we need to look at those people here who are born in the United States and those that are foreign born because together we can be a more thriving region and we wanna be back on a growth plan.

And the region is collaborating, and for us at the St. Louis economic development partnership groups like Greater St. Louis Inc, the regional business council, private, public, the universities, to get us back on that growth trajectory, we need to work on the 95% of our region that is born in the United States, and then the 5% that's foreign born, we need to grow that too.

- [Ruth] St. Louis Mosaic project executive director, Betsy Cohen, literally wrote the book on job hunting for newcomers to the U.S. - It became clear to me during the pandemic that one thing I could do while working remotely as we all were, was what if I took all the knowledge that I shared on LinkedIn.

People said, Betsy, write a book.

So I wrote the book, "Welcome to the U.S.A. You're Hired: A Guide for Foreign-Born People Seeking a Job."

And that's the only book in the country for those job seekers with special chapters for international students, for refugees, for executive spouses and partners, all of them.

I have case studies and say, this worked, this didn't worked.

Everything from how do you manage your stress, how do you face the online application?

How do you interview in the United States in a positive way?

How do you prepare yourself if it's in person, on Zoom, how do you negotiate your salary?

What's possible?

Because in our country things are different than many home countries and I wanted people to have the benefit of that knowledge.

So it was really a matter of my passion to share that knowledge.

- [Ruth] Knowledge that may come in handy for colleague, Bakhtyar who hopes at some point to resume his education.

- I want to study accounting, yeah, that's been my ambitions, so I need to, I already applied, but I need little bit of time because I'm working full time.

And it's so hard for me to join together.

Yeah and then I want to move to the university, finish my degree and have a good job in the United States and a good life.

- [Ruth] And with the support of Jim Norris, Baktyar's American Dream could come true.

- I think it's a winning program that we should continue to push and take advantage of where people around the world that need to come here have to come here, make it easy for 'em to be part of St. Louis.

(soft music) - That's all the time we have tonight, thanks for joining us for this living St. Louis Pathways to Work Special.

If you'd like to download the 2022 State of the Workforce report, visit NinePBS.org/pathwaystowork, goodnight.

- [Narrator] Living St. Louis is made possible by the support of the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation, the Mary Ranken Jordan and Ettie A. Jordan Charitable Trust, and by the members of Nine PBS.

(upbeat music)