Washington — Bill Polacek’s industry is dealing with a labour market problem so big, even Federal Reserve chairperson Janet Yellen is talking about it. A few years ago, Polacek interviewed 350 people to fill openings for 50 welders and machinists at his Johnstown, Pennsylvania-based manufacturing company. After narrowing the pool down to 100, he found that half of those candidates either had a criminal record or failed the drug test. "We weren’t attracting the right people," Polacek says of the episode, which prompted him to invest in extensive outreach to local high schools to build up a pipeline of workers. An estimated 2.7-million adults over the age of 26 were misusing painkillers as of 2015, while another 236,000 currently use heroin, based on test Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration data. While opioid abusers account for a tiny sliver in a workforce of 160-million, they probably make up a great share of the 7-million who are unemployed. "Our district is t...
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