The Central Valley/Mother Lode Center of Excellence (COE) has released its annual “2023 Central Valley/Mother Lode Region: Overview,” a report that highlights labor market trends in 10 sectors critical to the local economy.

This year’s report includes demographic analysis of the workforce composition of each sector, in terms of gender, age, and race/ethnicity. 

The report also identifies middle-skill occupations, those jobs that require more education than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree, in each sector with the greatest number of annual job openings as well as the highest paid middle-skill occupations in each sector.

The report compares workforce demand by sector with the supply of students being prepared by regional community colleges to enter the workforce, and identifies areas where a shortage of workers may exist. 

A key finding of the analysis is that the three sectors with the greatest number of annual openings also have the largest gaps in workforce supply in the region:

• Health, a shortage of 15,664 workers
• Business and entrepreneurship, a shortage of 15,161 workers
• Energy, construction, and utilities, a shortage of 11,034 workers