Diagnosing Wyoming's Workforce Challenges

Wyoming is facing two distinct labor market challenges: in the short-term low workforce availability is a constraint while in the long-term job and wage growth have stagnated. Currently, Wyoming’s labor market is characterized by tightness and employers are struggling to fill positions. However, the current tightness of the labor market is not a phenomenon that is specific to Wyoming but instead is prevalent across the country. What sets Wyoming apart is the lack of growth in employment and wages over the long-term. Understanding these differing dynamics is important because policy responses may attempt to address the short-term issue without considering the underlying structural causes of the long-term dynamics. This will likely be ineffective and not lead to lasting change. For lasting change, the structural issues of the long-term dynamic need to be addressed. An often-discussed solution is to increase the supply of training and education – this has merits in its own right but will not solve the long-term labor market challenge facing Wyoming. Only 38% of all jobs in Wyoming require tertiary education, the second lowest of any US state. Additionally, our analysis shows that the returns to a tertiary degree in Wyoming are significantly below those of its peers. Unsurprisingly, the lack of demand for tertiary-educated workers leads many young Wyomingites with a tertiary degree to leave the state. Overall, however, Wyoming has become an exporter of well-trained young people. Increasing the supply of tertiary education will not address the underlying structural issues facing the labor market. A main driver of Wyoming’s lagging performance has been the comparatively low labor productivity in the state. Most of Wyoming’s industries have a lower output per worker than the respective national industry and pay lower wages on average. Industries that fall into this category cover 82.8% of all employment in Wyoming. The few industries in which Wyoming is more productive than the rest of the US are mostly related to natural resource extraction. Wage dynamics of occupations in the state exert a similar pattern where STEM-related occupations have not seen much growth, indicating low demand in the state. To address the long-term issue Wyoming needs to create the conditions for a more complex economy that can use the potential of its human capital instead of excessively relying on its natural resources. The challenge is to attract and grow competitive companies in industries with strong demand. A critical factor in doing so is scale. Many more knowledge-intensive industries tend to develop in places that are larger urban agglomerations. Wyoming should focus on the positive forces of agglomeration to develop these industries and make use of the productive potential it has. Creating the conditions for this includes place-based investments and an enabling regulatory framework. In Wyoming, housing regulations have been an important barrier preventing further agglomerations, but efforts are underway to address this barrier. In the short-term, solutions that are focused on increasing the available labor pool within the state appear most promising in easing the current constraint. This is especially true when they address structural barriers that could persist after the labor market cools off. Our work documents specific recommendations within the areas of childcare, justice-involved individuals, higher education, and out-of-state workers (Section 3.2) that aim to increase the participation from these labor pools in Wyoming’s workforce. These are labor pools that are significant in size and have underutilized potential in terms of labor force participation within the state.