NKY’s workforce is shrinking. How will the region respond?

“Everyone that’s going to enter the labor market in the next 15 years has been born,” said Janet Harrah, senior director of the Center for Economic Analysis and Development at Northern Kentucky University. 

Harrah met with LINK nky to discuss ongoing labor and workforce trends in Northern Kentucky, which in many ways mirrors trends nationwide, she said. 

This story is part of our latest super issue, which examines the future of work in Northern Kentucky. Click here to learn more.

When considering the future of work in the region, several trends need to be reckoned with. Among them are slower population growth, an aging population and growing ethnic diversity among workers. (Increased federal emphasis on immigration enforcement may affect that trend.)

A report from the Census Bureau at the end of last year, which was analyzed and reported on by the Kentucky Lantern, illustrates these trends for Kentucky. Deaths exceeded births in the commonwealth in 2024 – 53,140 Kentuckians died compared to 52,248 born – according to the report. That was offset by migration from other states of 7,294 people. International migration, on the other hand, was the greatest source of population growth: Kentucky gained 31,430 people as a net exchange from other countries, accounting for about 80% of the state’s net population gain.

Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties saw estimated population increases of 2,624, 2,614 and 149, respectively, between 2023 and 2024, according to estimates from the Census Bureau. 

What do these trends mean for the future of labor, public services and the economy for the Northern Kentucky region?

How we got here

It’s difficult to understand the current state of affairs in Northern Kentucky without understanding what led to it. 

Prior to the American Civil War, much of Northern Kentucky’s economy was agrarian. After the Civil War and into the 20th century, the river cities, especially Covington and Newport, became economic hubs as stops for steamships carrying goods up and down the Ohio. Cincinnati itself was a hub for the construction of such ships, which continue to play a role in local culture, even if they’ve been sidelined as economic engines. 

In time, this gave way to manufacturing. Compared to other parts of the state, where economies ran on coal mining and other ventures, the workers in these cities became highly organized. 

“You had more of a robust labor class in Northern Kentucky because of the goods that were coming up and down the river,” said Eric Jackson, a historian and dean of NKU’s College of Arts and Sciences. “And you have more organizing of a labor force in Northern Kentucky because of the river.”

Newport itself was the site of one of the longest strikes in history, the Newport Steel Strike, which officially lasted for nearly seven years from 1921 to 1928 (although in practice it lasted less than a year). The power of unions waned in the latter years of the 20th century, however. Changes in technology, especially in the industrial sectors where unions tended to dominate, and federal economic policy meant organized labor as an institution in the river cities lost prominence over time. Steel production in Newport, for instance, completely ceased by 2001. 

As in the past, changes in science and technology have an indelible impact on the labor market, as other stories in this issue attest. 

Boone County takes off

Boone County was a different story. It remained largely agrarian even into the 20th century, Jackson said. That is, until the airport came. 

“That airport changed everything,” Jackson said. 

The first commercial flight to what was then called the Greater Cincinnati Airport landed in 1947, but the airport didn’t begin to take its current form until the 1970s and 1980s. By the mid 1980s, the airport had become a major hub for Delta Air Lines, and the number of major international airlines serving it grew. The airport’s growth reshaped Boone County. 

“It changed flight patterns,” Jackson said. “It changed the growth patterns. It changed race relations … because now you were shipping goods in and out, and people in and out, and you needed land, and so the county was buying land, and other folks were being manipulated out of their farms, particularly African Americans.”

DHL opened a cargo hub at the airport in 1983, and Amazon broke ground on its hub there in 2019. Logistics and shipping continue to be a huge economic driver in the region, and, as a result, many of the workers at the airport are more transient. Meanwhile, the river cities and other parts of the region began to transform into residential augmentation of businesses headquartered in Cincinnati. 

“What [Newport and Covington] have is the growth coming from folks from across the river because they’re more connected to Cincinnati,” Jackson said. “So their labor force is probably more tied into Fortune 500 companies whose headquarters are in Cincinnati.”

The region’s entrepreneurial landscape began to increase in the late 20th century and into the 21st. Professionals and business people who lived in Northern Kentucky but worked in downtown Cincinnati wanted nice restaurants, recreation and other activities to occupy themselves outside of work. Jackson described the current labor market as a bit of a “hodgepodge.” 

Health care is currently the largest employment sector, according to Harrah, but she’s quick to point out that big employment sectors aren’t necessarily the ones driving growth. “Most of your jobs are in sectors that are shuffling money around the community,” she said. “Health care, retail trade, restaurants, entertainment.” 

In contrast, industries “bringing new dollars into the market,” Harrah said, tend to be found in the life sciences, advanced manufacturing, aviation, logistics and wholesale trade sectors. Employment in these sectors, compared to the traditional employment sectors, tends to be more top heavy, occupied by a handful of (often well-paid) salaried professionals, rather than large numbers of wage laborers. 

“GDP can be growing, even as the distribution of that GDP is becoming more unequal,” Harrah said. 

What does the future hold?

“Lots of [baby boomers] have already retired, but the millennials are big enough to replace those jobs, to replace the boomers in number,” Harrah said. “But when we look at the Gen Z, there aren’t as many of them as there are millennials.”

This means the overall labor force is likely to decrease in the coming years, making it “one of the questions we have to figure out as a society,” Harrah said. 

There are several things the region has to do in order to ensure the economy continues to grow in the face of a shrinking labor force: Ensure everyone is educated enough to work, whether that’s through college or through trades education or other post-secondary education; and properly employ technological advances to increase economic output and invest in training and retraining programs.

To counter overall aging of the population, Harrah said, “One solution might be, how do we keep people longer in the workforce? But that’s not something that we can impose on employers.” 

It’s harder for people over the age of 50 to re-enter the workforce if they are laid off or have to leave a job for some other reason, Harrah said. The typical age of retirement is also increasing from 65, she said. So what would it take to keep people in the workforce from 65 onward, Harrah asked. 

Harrah admitted that she didn’t have a ready-made solution. 

“Most counties across the U.S. don’t have a plan on aging,” said Laura Allen, a postdoctoral researcher, former Fulbright scholar and one of the researchers behind Kenton County’s Age Well Initiative, which aims to build a five-year plan on aging for the county’s seniors. The work is being done in partnership with the Northern Kentucky Area Development District, which is managing the money for the project as its fiscal agent.

Allen and her colleagues are holding several community sessions on issues related to aging, such as transportation, long-term health care, senior housing and other topics through the fall. 

While she believed Kenton County was doing better than many other counties across the country, she said, “what we hear from folks in all of our interviews and community conversations with people is a lot of the services are fragmented, and it’s hard for a person to navigate through the care system.” 

Allen points to three primary drivers of the aging population: 

• Increased life expectancy due to advances in technology and medicine.
• The fact that aging baby boomers are one of larger generational cohorts.
• A ripple effect from the Great Recession, whose economic strain led to fewer children being born.

Change work, not workers

When asked about older adults in the workforce, Allen said, “a lot of it comes down to workplace policies and how supportive they are for older adults.”

She pointed to an August 2023 AARP report from researchers Lisa Berkman and Beth Truesdale titled “Who’s Working Longer – and Who’s Left Behind? Good Jobs Make Delayed Retirement a Healthier Option.” It essentially argues to “change the work, not the worker” and offers recommendations to deal with an aging workforce. Those include:

• Allowing more flexibility in how employees complete their work.
• Moderating excessive work demands.
• Improving social relationships in the workplace.

Of course, one issue with arguing that people should continue working into their late 60s and early 70s is that many people at that age will begin to experience health problems that will impede their ability to work. 

“I don’t know how many people who are in their 70s, if they’re doing blue collar occupations, would be able to maintain the speed, timing and agility to keep that job,” said Karen Hill, a resident at Panorama Apartments in Covington.

Originally from Cincinnati and now 67, Hill has a Ph.D. in environmental biology and formerly worked as a field researcher in South America. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2015 and hasn’t been able to work since her diagnosis. Like many seniors who’ve left the workforce, she lives on a fixed income. 

Only in her late 50s when diagnosed, she wasn’t immediately eligible for Social Security payments, although she would eventually qualify for Supplemental Security Income, or SSI. When she stopped working, she said, her income tanked from six figures to about $12,000 a year. 

Panorama Apartments, where she lives, is a nonprofit housing facility in Covington with about 240 units. The organization that owns the complex has a sister facility in Florence, which has 60 units. 

As LINK has previously reported, the region’s housing woes are a continuing source of anxiety for many residents. There are many reasons seniors could lose their housing. Many older renters get displaced when rents jump. Other times, health issues make living in a previous home physically untenable. 

Hill, for instance, had decided to sell her home and move in with an acquaintance to be closer to where she got her cancer treatments. Then that acquaintance decided to sell her own house, so Hill ended up in a place called the Center for Respite Care in Cincinnati. The center then contacted Karen Hargett, Panorama’s executive director, who worked to get Hill an apartment at the complex. 

Hargett said the waiting list to get a room at Panorama was about 130 people as of mid-September, when LINK interviewed her. 

When asked about how the region was planning for its aging population, Hargett said, “I don’t feel like we’re prepared for it at all.” 

Allen, of the Age Well Initiative, was complimentary of Kenton County, saying it had begun making strides in planning for its aging population, unlike other communities in the country. Hill, for her part, thought Northern Kentucky was more welcoming to seniors overall. 

“I’m a lot more relaxed living in Kentucky,” Hill said. “It’s more laid back.”

In relation to its older residents, whether working or nonworking, Anne Wildman, the associate director of aging and disability at the Northern Kentucky Area Development District, gave the following recommendations for the region:

• Expand home and community-based care resources (in contrast to institutional care like nursing homes) for older adults. 
• Increase the amount of senior-friendly housing.
• Strengthen support for senior caregivers, whether professional or otherwise.
• Increase health care access in rural areas.

Chilling effect on immigrants

Immigration, on the other hand, is more uncertain. 

While it’s true that immigrants tend to have higher birth rates than other demographics, recent changes at the federal level mean that the future of migration is in flux. With the passage of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which took effect Oct. 1, Congress set aside approximately $170 billion for immigration enforcement. 

Employment visas, according to Jessica Ramos, an attorney and manager of the immigration team at the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati, are “generally only available to people with higher education. There are very few unskilled labor visas available technically.”

In June, the Trump administration began sending out notices to about 500,000 migrants with temporary protected status that had previously been granted the right to work, encouraging them to self-deport. 

Theresa Cruz, founder of Boone County nonprofit Fiesta NKY, said actions like this, as well as the increased likelihood of enforcement raids, could have a chilling effect on migrants looking for work in the U.S. 

“I feel bad for companies, because, once they start having more raids, [migrants] aren’t going to want to go work,” Cruz said, adding that, with all the changes at the federal level, “we don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next.”