Policymakers at the city, regional and state levels must think differently about how to prepare people for the workforce because the economy continues to change, an economic consultant told a group of legislators who convened in Springdale on Thursday.
Two global trends driving changes are the continued movement away from farms to cities and the effects technology continues to have on the way employers do business, said Ted Abernathy, managing partner for the North Carolina-based firm Economic Leadership.
"It raises the skill level," Abernathy said.
Legislators on the Joint Performance Review Committee spent Wednesday in Fort Smith and Thursday in Springdale, with the meetings centering on the need for qualified workers.
For Rep. Douglas House, R-North Little Rock, the meetings confirm a disconnect exists between education and employers.
"Employers are telling us, 'We can't find people,'" he said. "The education system is saying, 'We're graduating higher percentages of people.' Something is not right."
House said he thinks the needs of the state's largest employers are being met, but the needs of smaller employers are not. Some institutions of higher education are over-equipped but are not producing enough graduates, he said. He is considering proposing policies that would require an education institution to move assets it's not using -- such as expensive pieces of industrial equipment -- to an institution that can make better use of those resources.
"We want every institution to have the the resources it needs," he said.
Abernathy is involved with projects related to workforce development in Springdale with the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, he said. He also has worked with the Northwest Arkansas Council and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, as well as with groups in other states.
He suggested legislators think about policies that are flexible enough to respond to the needs of employers and that make education systems give greater consideration to industry needs, he said. He suggested business leaders be allowed to evaluate the curriculum in place in schools and suggest what else should be taught.
Resources should be directed to the job skills that are in the highest demand, he said.
In Springdale, a common complaint of employers is the difficulty in finding employees with job-specific skills and with everyday work skills, including the ability to interview for a job, communicate and to make decisions, he said.
Abernathy is working on a report due out in a few weeks that will recommend increasing the information available about what employers need to parents and students preparing to enter the labor market, he said.
"You're going to have to make changes, or your businesses are going to leave and your people are going to be on public assistance," he said.
The use of technology in the workplace requires workers to have a different set of skills, Abernathy said. He displayed a chart showing jobs that are likely to be replaced by a robot, and the top one on the list was telemarketers.
Despite changes taking place in the workplace, many schools across the country continue to operate in an environment developed to train factory workers, with students sitting in rows with teachers expecting them to be quiet, Abernathy said. Changing school systems is difficult, though, because parents often oppose those changes, he said.
"Don't blame the schools," he said.
Parents and educators often advocate that children graduate from high school and go on to earn a four-year degree, Abernathy said.
While more education is correlated with more earnings, a December 2013 report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in 2022 only 22.8 percent of jobs will require at least a bachelor's degree or higher, a statistic Abernathy shared with the legislators. The report shows that in 2012 the percent of jobs requiring a bachelor's degree or higher was 22.3 percent.
Workforce development systems can't just focus on high school and college students nearing graduation, he said. They also must include older workers whose jobs have been outsourced or displaced.
Metro on 08/31/2014