美国国家公共电台 NPR Opioid Crisis Looms Over Job Market, Worrying Employers And Economists

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In Muncie, Ind., the unemployment rate is 4.4 percent, which is to say that just about everyone who wants a job has one. Some economists 1 say that low figure may be deceiving, though, because a significant number of people are missing from the labor 2 force. In the first of a two-part series, NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports that opioid abuse might help explain their absence in Muncie and countless 3 communities like it.

YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE 4: Express Employment Professionals sits on Muncie's main commercial artery 5 and places about 120 people every month in jobs at local companies.

Hi.

NATE MILLER 6: Hi, I'm Nate.

NOGUCHI: Around 2007, the last time hiring was this hot, job applicants 7 streamed through its doors. Nate Miller is Express's owner.

MILLER: Even with the low unemployment rates that we had at that time, there were still plenty of applicants. Now we're down to that 3 percent to 4 percent unemployment throughout all of Indiana, but there's very few applicants. And the question is, you know, where'd they go?

NOGUCHI: Where did they go? That is an enigma 8 for economists, from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on down. In the 1950s, nearly all working-age men were in the labor force. Now that's 88 percent. Baby boomer retirement 9 is a big factor, but opioid addiction 10 might also explain some of the decline. Miller says a third of his applicants these days fail pre-employment drug screens, nowadays almost always for opioids. Meanwhile employers tell him they could build and sell more if they could only find and keep more workers.

MILLER: We know employers who just don't want to know. Don't drug-test them. We don't want to know. It's not necessarily the best practice, but it is something that they do because they need people, and they need them so badly.

NOGUCHI: The opioid crisis is no worse in Muncie than elsewhere. It's representative of the typical small American town with an economy built on manufacturing, agriculture and Ball State University. People here say problems associated with pain pills and heroin 11 ramped 12 up about two years ago. It hit more people harder and across more walks of life than the methamphetamine boom did several years back. For metal parts-maker Mursix Corp., dealing 13 with it head on has been both painful and necessary.

SUSAN CARLOCK: You can see all these punch presses out here will stamp-out metal parts or components 14, right?

NOGUCHI: Susan Carlock is co-owner and vice 15 president of Mursix. She says two years ago productivity took a hit as some employees dealt drugs, got high or nodded-off on the factory floor. Others took time off to handle opioid-related family emergencies. At the time, the company wanted to expand. Instead, Carlock says, establishing new procedures for drug monitoring, rehab and dismissal became the top priority.

CARLOCK: We have companies, overseas companies that are coming to us for us to be a supplier to them, and their No. 1 question is workforce 16 - and sober workforce.

NOGUCHI: Zero-tolerance, she says, is still a balancing act. So many applicants have drug-related records the company now has to consider people with those charges.

CARLOCK: We are a victim of the lack of workforce in this community, and we've had to - I don't want to say lower or bend our standards, but we've re-evaluated.

NOGUCHI: Data indicate alcohol abuse is more prevalent and it's health effects ultimately more lethal 17, but opioids have a bigger impact on work. The National Safety Council and the NORC Research Group at the University of Chicago say opioid users miss twice as many days of work as people with addictions 18 to alcohol or other drugs. And an untold 19 number of opioid users don't work at all. I meet Shon Byrum at a diner that no longer serves spoons so customers won't use them to cook drugs in the bathroom. Byrum is 34, grew up just outside of Muncie, in Winchester, and is now that town's mayor. He worries about an economic vicious cycle, one where people find dealing opioids more lucrative 20 than working. That, in turn, makes recruiting more challenging. One local manufacturer, he says, found a workaround.

SHON BYRUM: They are investing, in their plant, in $5.5 million dollars' worth of mechanical arms to take the place of entry-level worker because they cannot keep them. They're failing drug tests or they don't show up.

NOGUCHI: Byrum wants to open new drug treatment centers, not just for public health, but also to foster a reliable workforce so employers can stick around. Michael Hicks directs the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State. He estimates roughly 1.5 percent of Muncie's population is neither working nor looking for work because of opioids.

MICHAEL HICKS: Which seems like a small amount, but with an unemployment rate at 4 percent, that means 1 out of every 4 people who might otherwise be applying for a job are out of the labor force.

NOGUCHI: The after-effects, Hicks says, will linger for at least a generation.

HICKS: What we're really worried about should be a long-term effect of people who are bounced entirely 21 out of a productive life because of this addiction.

NOGUCHI: For those in recovery, employers like Richard Gill want to offer second chances. He co-owns Gill Bros. Furniture, started by his family 50 years ago. Higher turnover 22 and an opioid-related firing left him short staffed.

RICHARD GILL: I have been running a forklift for the last two days in our warehouse 23 so I literally 24 took a shower before I came to this interview.

NOGUCHI: Gill says he would love to expand.

GILL: By all means we want to hire younger workers. We do. They have more energy. They have better backs. But it is difficult to find them.

NOGUCHI: And also difficult to make sure they're sober. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Muncie, Ind.