This post is the fourth of a four-part response by Corporate Voices for Working Families to the recent NPR series, “The Skills Gap: Holding Back the Labor Market,” which explores unemployment in America, the ill-prepared workforce and the critical need for  workforce readiness training.

As we head into the holiday season, 15 million Americans across the country are still struggling to find jobs and the nation is seemingly stuck with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate. Many may know these statistics well, however in a recent segment on NPR’s Morning Edition titled “Life on the Sidelines: The Long Term Unemployed,” John Ydsti explored the lesser-known problem of long-term unemployment, how that impacts the human capital of our workforce and what that means for future economic growth.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 6 million Americans– over 40 percent of those unemployed– have been out of work for six months or longer.  Defined as the “long term unemployed,” these Americans risk losing valuable skills and human capital as they remain out of work on the sidelines of the labor market, or as they accept lower-skilled jobs.

From the article:

“The wasted human capital is just tremendous,” says Jacob Kirkegaard, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Once people become unemployed for long periods of time, you start seeing a serious depreciation or reduction in their skill levels — in the human capital that they carry.”

This depreciation and loss of skills can be a drag on overall economic growth and can also harm prospects for future growth. It is this concern that motivates those who call for more investment in community colleges and workforce training programs to protect our nation’s human capital and to ensure long-term economic growth.

From the article:

“If there’s one thing where it is sensible for the government to have a bigger deficit in the short term in order to avoid long-term lower economic growth, it is in combating long-term unemployment,” Kirkegaard says.

Corporate Voices for Working Families believes that as we invest in community colleges, we would do well to recognize the critical role the business community plays, in partnership with community colleges, to build the skills and human capital of the workforce. Our recently published report, “From an Ill-Prepared to a Well-Prepared Workforce: The Shared Imperatives for Employers and Community Colleges to Collaborate,” highlights examples of these innovative partnerships and discusses how they are needed to ensure our nation’s economic competitiveness.

“Learn and Earn” examples from the paper include Verizon Wireless’ partnership with Pima Community College and AOL’s partnership with Year Up. Additional examples and micro business case studies featuring CVS Caremark, Expeditors and Northrop Grumman are available on Corporate Voices’ website.

These partnerships focus on empowering young people to combine work with school so they can complete their postsecondary education, but they can also help older, displaced workers upgrade their skills to pursue new careers. Partnerships like these to promote workforce training are and will become increasingly necessary to combat long-term unemployment and to ensure our future economic prosperity.

Through its workforce readiness work, Corporate Voices will continue to highlight the role of the business community in building the skills of our workforce and to educate policymakers on the challenges and opportunities that exist to improve the lives of working families.

This post is the third of a four-part response by Corporate Voices for Working Families to the recent NPR series, “The Skills Gap: Holding Back the Labor Market,” which explores unemployment in America, the ill-prepared workforce and workforce readiness training.

NPR focused attention last week on several critical issues facing American workers and our economy: a skills gap that is preventing many workers from obtaining jobs and gaining career advancement if employed and the current level of unacceptably high unemployment that may continue for the next several years.

Corporate Voices for Working Families has been adding perspective on the issues raised in the NPR series in posts looking at the skills gap and model business programs that aim through education and training to benefit both employees and employers.

The NPR series examined the problems facing people who are unemployed – particularly the long-term unemployed and those who are looking to enter the workforce for the first time – in a segment titled, “Job Seekers Find Bias Against The Unemployed.

Here’s from the NPR report:

Unemployed workers face big hurdles as they try to get new jobs in today’s economy. First, there’s the numbers game: Close to 25 million workers unemployed or under-employed looking for jobs. In fact, there are five unemployed workers for every single job opening in the economy.

Increasingly, though, jobless workers are facing the ultimate barrier. Some employers are saying if you’re out of work, we don’t want to hire you.

The reality is that employers want to hire and retain the most qualified employees possible. And in some cases there is a disconnect – as pointed out in the NPR series and in several research studies conducted by Corporate Voices – between the skills that prospective workers have and the skills that employers require.

For instance, Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,” explains it this way. There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate. (Wagner was the keynote speaker at the Corporate Voices Annual Meeting in 2008.)

Whether a skills gap leads to a bias against those who are unemployed versus those who already have jobs is debatable. But the issue raised in the NPR series does point to serious challenges facing American workers who are looking for jobs during this period of sustained unemployment. Consider the most recent view of the Federal Reserve:

Unemployment is set to remain higher for longer than previously thought, according to new projections from the Federal Reserve that would mean more than 10 million Americans remain jobless through the 2012 elections – even as a separate report shows corporate profits reaching their highest levels ever.

Top Federal Reserve officials project that the unemployment rate, now 9.6 percent, will fall only to about 9 percent at the end of 2011 and about 8 percent when the next presidential election arrives, in late 2012. The central bankers had envisioned a more rapid decline in joblessness in their previous forecasts, prepared in June.

The reality: the job market is going to remain weak for even those with skills and education. But it is going to be almost impossible for those without the necessary skills and education — particularly a postsecondary credential — to compete for jobs.

Here’s from a recent New York Times column by Thomas Friedman:

As Education Secretary Arne Duncan put it to me in an interview, 50 years ago if you dropped out, you could get a job in the stockyards or steel mill and still “own your own home and support your family.” Today, there are no such good jobs for high school dropouts. “They’re gone,” said Duncan. “That’s what we haven’t adjusted to.” When kids drop out today, “they’re condemned to poverty and social failure.” There are barely any jobs left for someone with only a high school diploma, and that’s only valuable today if it has truly prepared you to go on to higher education without remediation — the only ticket to a decent job

One of the major Corporate Voices initiatives involves learn and earn models and best practices that present one crucial strategy for addressing the skills gaps that are hindering workers and businesses.

Through the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Corporate Voices for Working Families has compiled a series of micro-business case studies highlighting employers who are establishing learn and earn partnerships. These employers, who include Expeditors, CVS Caremark, and Bison Gear and Engineering Corporation, are collaborating to provide working learners with the opportunity to pursue postsecondary credentials while simultaneously working and earning a living.

Corporate Voices believes that when business and industry partner with education to create opportunities for individuals to advance academically and along career pathways, business, education and students can all reach their goals.  As reported in the recently released From an Ill-Prepared” to a Well-Prepared Workforce: The Shared Imperatives for Employers and Community Colleges to Collaborate, through collaboration:

  • Individuals will be supported and encouraged to complete postsecondary credentials essential to obtaining or growing into employment with family-sustaining wages.
  • Businesses will gain skilled, work-ready talent.
  • Education will be more closely matched to labor market demands, and businesses will support the college completion agenda.

Partnerships between business and education are essential to improving the lives of working families.  Corporate Voices, through its workforce readiness platform, will continue to highlight industry leaders, to participate in research design and to educate policy makers, all in an effort to help explain the challenges and opportunities around the education and skills gap facing our country today.  Corporate Voices invites employers who might have a learn and earn model to be highlighted and/or would like to join the Learn and Earn Business Leader Team to explore peer to peer learning of promising practices, to contact us.

This post is the second of a four-part response by Corporate Voices for Working Families to the recent NPR series, “The Skills Gap: Holding Back the Labor Market,” which explores unemployment in America, the ill-prepared workforce and workforce readiness training.

As the United States continues to navigate through a tough economic climate with consistently high unemployment rates, it is important to note that there are still about 3 million job openings throughout the country.  In a recent story titled, “To Fill Job Skills, Firm Brings Training in Hours,” NPR examines the impact the skills gap is having on businesses and how some are attempting to combat the problem.

According to the story, one of the major problems facing employers is that “technology is outpacing the country’s current approach to educating and training workers.”  Custom Group, a manufacturing company outside Boston, realized the problem it was facing and decided to start its own training school.  At the Center for Manufacturing Technology, students gain experience cutting metal parts in the school’s own machine shop, where they learn to use state-of-the-art computer-controlled equipment. And just about all of the students have been hired by Custom Group or other local companies, many before they even graduate.

It is not surprising to find business providing training to compensate for the lack of a skilled workforce.  After extensive research, Corporate Voices along with national partners published “Are They Really Ready to Work” in 2006.  The research found that employers are not satisfied with the level of preparedness of their entry level hires.  As a follow up to this research, Corporate Voices published a “The Ill-Prepared Workforce” in 2009, which highlighted employers compensating for the lack of prepared workers by providing in-house training, similar to the Center for Manufacturing Technology.   However, many of the employers participating in the research reported limited success with their training initiatives and little knowledge of the cost of these endeavors.

To address this issue, Corporate Voices has recently partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to bring the business perspective to the postsecondary completion agenda. It is widely acknowledged that the completion of at least one year of education and/or training beyond high school has become the minimum necessary for workers to successfully enter the workforce.  This puts Corporate Voices for Working Families at the nexus of an issue critical to the future of the American economy—ensuring a skilled talent pool for a competitive future.

As part of the recent partnership with the Gates Foundation, Corporate Voices’ member company Northrop Grumman Corporation was featured in a set of micro-business cases spotlighting business contributions to postsecondary completion and progressive talent development.

Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding (NGSB), part of Northrop Grumman Corporation, is the sole designer and maintainer of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and requires a highly skilled, technical workforce. To ensure the availability of this workforce, particularly in light of the number of retiring skilled workers, NGSB has made significant investments in The Apprentice School.

The Apprentice School fills the “mission critical” role for NGSB of providing a reliable source of skilled talent and future leaders in shipbuilding and repair. Through its World Class Shipbuilder Curriculum, The Apprentice School offers academic instruction in 19 registered apprenticeship programs critical to shipbuilding. Apprentices can choose from in-demand careers such as pipefitter, heavy metal fabricator, maintenance electrician, welder and more. All programs are registered with the Virginia Apprenticeship Council, recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Apprenticeship. Apprentice School graduates receive state government-issued journeyman credentials in their chosen crafts/trades.

The school also offers six optional advanced programs critical to NGSB in Marine Design, Modeling & Simulation, Nuclear Test, Production Planning, Cost Engineering, and Advanced Shipyard Operations. Conducted in partnership with Thomas Nelson Community College and Tidewater Community College, the advanced programs result in an associate of science degree in engineering, an associate of applied science degree in engineering technology (mechanical or electrical), or an associate of science degree in business administration. Impressively, more than 32 percent of a recent class of completing apprentices earned associate degrees as part of their apprenticeship experience.

More and more businesses are turning to community partners and educational institutions to help close the education and skills gap.  Corporate Voices through its work with the Ready by 21 National Partnership continues to produce tools available to business and community leaders, which seek to build sustainable and long-lasting cross-sector partnerships.  The goal of these partnerships is to provide businesses with a prepared and skilled workforce and community leaders with young people  and working families who are succeeding in life.

Partnerships between business and education are essential to improving the lives of young people and working families.  Corporate Voices, through its workforce readiness platform, will continue to highlight industry leaders, to participate in research design and to educate policy makers, all in an effort to help explain the challenges and opportunities around the education and skills gap facing our country today.  Corporate Voices invites employers who might have a learn and earn model to be highlighted and/or would like to join the Learn and Earn Business Leader Team to explore peer to peer learning of promising practices, to contact us.

Next Page »