Story highlights Factory owner Regina Mitchell says Ohio's opioid epidemic means jobs are left open

"We just can't find people to show up who can pass a drug test," she says

(CNN) An Ohio factory owner said Saturday that though she has blue-collar jobs available at her company, she struggles to fill positions because so many candidates fail drug tests.

Regina Mitchell, a co-owner of Warren Fabricating & Machining in Hubbard, Ohio, told The New York Times this week that four out of 10 applicants otherwise qualified to be welders, machinists and crane operators will fail a routine drug test.

In an interview Saturday with CNN's Michael Smerconish, Mitchell said that her requirements for prospective workers were simple.

"I need employees who are engaged in their work while here, of sound mind and doing the best possible job that they can, keeping their fellow co-workers safe at all times," she said.

"We have a 150-ton crane in our machine shop. And we're moving 300,000 pounds of steel around in that building on a regular basis. So I cannot take the chance to have anyone impaired running that crane, or working 40 feet in the air."

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