Hindered by Utah's extremely tight labor market, the 22-year-old medical products testing laboratory is struggling to fill an array of high-paying positions.

"You hear about the state's low unemployment rate," Jeffery Nelson, Nelson Laboratories president and CEO, said Thursday. "We're really feeling it."

Nelson is hoping a new national program - the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development Initiative (WIRED) - will help ease some of the difficulty his company has in finding highly skilled and qualified workers.

Created by the U.S. Department of Labor, WIRED is designed to help communities nationwide train the next wave of skilled workers in biotechnology and biomanufacturing industries.

To that end, Utah was awarded $5 million from the U.S. Department of Labor. Much of that money is being used by the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED), the Utah Department of Workforce Services and Salt Lake Community College to create an education program at the college that will train people to work for Utah's many biotechnology and biomanufacturing companies.

"It speeds up the process so students can come directly out of high school and move into an associate degree program in biotechnology and biomanufacturing," said Michael Sullivan, GOED spokesman.

From there, many will be ready to fill a variety of positions at Utah companies, even if they continue on with their education, he said.

Nelson, who hosted U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Assistant Secretary Emily Stover DeRocco at his company Thursday, said he has added 70 workers over the past two years, bringing total employment at his company's facility to 265.

He expects a similar rate of employment growth in the coming years due to increasing demand for its medical testing services.

The company faces two problems, though, in increasing its staffing levels, Nelson said.

First, it doesn't get as many applications as it wants to see for positions despite jobs that pay from the $30,000s to six-figures.

For example, the company recently received 38 applications for 17 open positions it had advertised. "That's just not a favorable ratio for us to find higher quality applicants," Nelson said.

Secondly, many employees it hires still have to receive a fair amount of training before they can even start work due to the company's high testing standards.

Nelson said he hopes to start seeing some WIRED job applicants in the coming years.

"In order to grow, we need more talent," he said. "We're hoping programs like WIRED will help."

lesley@sltrib.com