Kansas farmer says finding skilled labor is a significant problem, still

A Kansas farmer says he’s struggling to find labor to replace his aging workforce.

Jim Sipes tells Brownfield the labor market is very tight. “We have a hard time competing for labor in the market.  There’s a lot of dairy and feedlot activity here.  It’s hard to compete with those businesses.

He says he’s been able to maintain his workforce so far, but some employees are close to retiring. “What I need to be doing is replacing those folks or at least adding people to the workforce now so they know the operation and know what repairs need to be done and then learn from folks that will be retiring.” 

Sipes says this is the tightest labor market he’s ever seen and it’s difficult to be competitive with wages.

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