WATERVILLE -- As thousands of area residents know, central Maine's business climate is churning, and not all for the better.

"Everything is in play in an economy that no longer is based on factories and low skills," said economist John Dorrer, director of the Center for Workforce Research and Information, of the state Department of Labor.

Now, he said, businesses are outsourcing. X-rays are being read in India and billing information is being done overseas. Maine is also competing with other states, he added.

"What looked good three years ago ... is not so good now. It's a highly fluid situation."

Dorrer spoke Thursday at a Thomas College talk called, "Central Maine's Dynamic Labor Market: Who is Hiring, and Who is Getting Hired?" The talk was part of the Business Breakfast Series organized by the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce.

"If you're not comfortable wallowing in ambiguity," he said, "it will be not be easy to deal with change."

In a Powerpoint presentation to about 40 members of the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce, Dorrer focused on the demographics of the workforce in Kennebec County and statewide, data that included workers' average age, educational levels and the face of changing labor markets.

"Demographics is destiny," he said.

Employers need to know what the picture of the local work force looks like, he explained, so they can improve their position in a fiercely competitive labor market.

"You have to skate to where you think the puck is going to be," he said.

The five highest employing occupations in Kennebec County, from highest to least high, he said, are: office and administrative support (average salary $26,541); sales ($22,734); food preparation and serving ($17,482); transportation and material moving ($24, 211) and health-care practitioners ($51,002). Education is key to a flexible, skilled workforce, he added. Higher education is no longer dominated by the United States and the European Union.

In 2003, the number of college graduates in China was 1 million; in the United States that year, it was 1.4 million. By 2015, China will surge to 5 million college graduates; the United States will be lagging with 2.5 million, he said.

"This is your high-end work force -- professors, scientists, technicians. We no longer own that world," he said.

Worker skills and available labor are primary drivers to the economy, deciding factors for businesses wondering where to locate.

"Seventy to 80 percent of the cost of a business is wages and salaries," he said.

He urged local business people to take a close look at the impact of an aging work force in Maine and the impending retirements of baby boomers.

"By 2015, the work force age will increase dramatically. It's scary, whether we will have the required number of workers to do the work. Any employer who doesn't have a strategy to accommodate baby boomers will be sadly left out," he said.

Look at options to make innovative use of that aging work force, he advised, such as hiring retired workers part time.

"Older workers are healthier and more energetic. They have something left to get back into the game," he said.

Despite dynamic changes, the overall business climate in central Maine is stable, he said.

"It's not great, but it's chugging along."

A chamber member asked: What characteristics make this region attractive to new businesses, so that they would locate here?

"I call this region the top point of a golden triangle in Maine," Dorrer said, of a region defined by the Waterville, Lewiston and Brunswick areas.

"There are good transportation routes for labor mobility to move freely; housing is more affordable; there are high level of amenities, like the lakes region and the coast. And, there is enough density of population to make labor available. We need to get smarter about marketing regionally," he said.

Lynn Ascrizzi -- 861-5731

lascrizzi@centralmaine.com