The U.S. Census Bureau and the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership in collaboration with the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER) and the Labor Market Institute (LMI), welcomes Patrick Flaherty as he presents, “Manufacturing Workers Age Profile and Implications for Earnings.” Before the pandemic, Connecticut experienced a rise in manufacturing employment along with evidence that employment growth would be even stronger if employers could find the right workers to hire. Employers reported hundreds of unfilled openings. Nevertheless, the average wage in manufacturing from traditional statistics, such as the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) did not increase at the pace that would be expected given a labor shortage in this industry. The Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) data set helps to solve this puzzle. By examining employment, hires and separations by age and wage the composition of the manufacturing workforce is changing and that average wages are being held down because highly paid older workers are separating (presumably retiring) while newly hired younger workers are earning less than the older workers they are replacing.

Patrick J. Flaherty is Assistant Director of Research and Information at the Connecticut Department of Labor where he is part of the leadership team of the state’s Labor Market Information unit. Prior to his promotion to Assistant Director he was an economist in the Office of Research where his responsibilities included occupational projections and long-term industry projections.

Patrick has authored several manuscripts for the Office of Research and has given many talks and presentations to business and jobseeker groups. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut where he teaches Principles of Microeconomics.

Among his experiences, Patrick worked for fourteen years for Fleet Financial Group and its predecessor companies where he was Vice President and Senior Economist, and served 10 years as a State Representative in the Connecticut General Assembly.

Currently Patrick is the Labor Commissioner’s designee as a member of the Connecticut Retirement Security Authority. He is also the New England representative on the Local Employment Dynamics Steering Committee.

Patrick received his Bachelor’s Degree in Social Studies from Harvard University and his Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Connecticut.