Reconciling Workforce Development and Economic Development: Still Worth Trying

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Reconciling Workforce Development and Economic
Development Still Worth Trying?

• Mary McCain
• TechVision21
• Washington Workforce and Economic Development
• 2007 Leadership Conference
• November 14, 2007

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Considering the Topic

• Is this really what we need to be talking about?

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The Points for Today

• Economic and Workforce Development
• Theory, Reality, Expectations of Alignment
• The Workforce Crisis Has Arrived
• Interests of Global Employers
• Talent and Global integration
• The New Workplace ICT-enabled Access and
  Communication 24/7
• Learning on Demand/Distance Learning
• The real challenges for workforce development
• Workforce Development Systems
• The Hard to Serve and Hard to Find
• The Role of Post-Secondary Education
• Distance Learning
• Is this really what we should be talking about?
• Sample Practices Integration, Alignment
• QA To and From

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US competitiveness at risk

• The Gathering Storm
• Global threats to dominance in innovation and
  talent
• Looming workforce crisis technology,
  demographic change, global marketplace for
  talent
• Outcomes in K-12, STEM, graduates, literacy,
  skill, etc.
• at best level at worst trending down
• Existing systems lack capacity, design for 21st
  century economy
• Federal Government Response
• Money for STEM at K-12, post-secondary and lab
  levels
• Discussion of importance of skilled workforce
• Not new news yet focus unchanged
• improve and/or expand and/or supplement
  traditional systems and methods
• Rising Above the Gathering Storm Energizing
  and Employing America for a Brighter Economic
  Future, National Academy of Sciences, National
  Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine,
  10/05.

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Economic and Workforce Development Theory and
Practice

• Responsibilities
• ED sets up attractive environment for business
  that includes critical element of skilled
  workforce and talent pool Presses start
  button.
• WFD identifies necessary skills to meet demand,
  trains workforce, makes match with employers.
• Shared macro goal of ensuring a skilled and
  talented workforce, BUT
• ED interest is a skilled and talented labor pool
  that employers can tap into if, when and as
  necessary
• WFD interest is in responding to triple challenge
  of bringing a labor pool of individuals at all
  levels of literacy, education, skill to the
  expected standard for an industry or new
  employer, responding to the skill demands of
  employers for new jobs and providing one or two
  employees to fill the often idiosyncratic skill
  demands of a single employer
• Process
• ED has clarity of process not much gray area
• WFD is difficult to categorize almost all gray
  area

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Economic and Workforce Development Expectations
of Alignment

• Risk in focus on alignment as goal
• Success possible only to the degree that systems
  work similarly and they do not
• ED typically overseen by no more than two
  agencies
• WFD typically part of four or more
• Successful performance may or may not result in
  same outcome
• ED gets employers, raises state revenue, creates
  jobs macro measure
• WFD gets people, trains and/or educates, object
  is jobs and/or career path for individual and
  family sustaining income micro measure
• WFD only one component of ED, not equal
  partner
• Alignment can be barrier to getting things done
• Too much focus on immediate results at ground
  level
• Too little focus on perspectives and processes to
  ensure sustainability

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Economic and Workforce Development The Middle
Distance

• Same degree of attention to mutual interests and
  processes on local/community level as required
  for alignment on state/regional level.
• Goal of linking ED and WFD is currently a
  popular, as well as important, one
• variety of options and potential funding sources
  for demonstrations (sectors, clusters,
  intermediaries, etc.) can lead to overlapping
  target populations, strategies, measures
• challenges in determining best practice and
  taking to scale
• Well-intentioned version of throwing mud against
  wall and seeing what sticks Experience remains
  valuable guide

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Washington StateDeclare Victory and Move On

• Best in Class The Next Washington
• Contributing reports (Washington Learns Global
  Competitiveness Council STECB Review of
  Workforce System, SBCTC System Direction, etc.)
  provide detailed, strategic assessments and
  recommendations for already-exemplary systems
  accountability for implementation
• Focus on integrating systems, implementing
  cluster and/or sectoral approaches on
  regional/local levels
• Funds for research, tech transfer, innovation
• Alignment may be by-product

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Workforce Crisis Unmet Demand

• Employer Surveys 2005/2006
• 400 senior executives across industry and company
  size - nearly 28 projected their companies will
  reduce hiring of new entrants with only a high
  school diploma over the next five years. 
• Human resource executives 70 said incoming
  workers with inadequate skills are greatest
  threat to business performance
• US manufacturers - Over 90 reported serious to
  moderate shortage of skilled workers 29
  commented that implementing and using new
  technology was most affected by shortage of
  skilled workers.
• Corporate training and development professionals
  43 listed skills shortages among top three
  business challenges.
• 200 multinational corporations stated that they
  are global shoppers for talent, not just
  seekers of low-wage workers.
• The Conference Board, Partnership for 21st
  Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working
  Families, Society for Human Resource Executives,
  Are They Really Ready to Work? (10/06) Deloitte
  Research, Its 2008 Do You Know Where Your
  Talent Is? Why Acquisition and Retention
  Strategies Dont Work National Association of
  Manufacturers and Deloitte Consulting,LLP, 2005
  Skills Gap Report (11/05) The Ken Blanchard
  Companies Corporate Issues Survey for 2006.
  TechLearn Newsline (April 11, 2006) Jerry G.
  Thursby and Marie C. Thursby, Here or There? A
  Survey on the Factors in Multinational RD
  Location and IP Protection, Highlights found on
  www.kauffmann.org.

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Workforce Crisis Education Demand

• Between 2000 and 2015, about 85 newly created
  U.S. jobs will require education beyond high
  school.
• 69.8 of jobs will require work-related training
• 20.9 will require a bachelor's degree or higher,
  
• 9.3 will require an associate's degree or
  postsecondary vocational award.
• 2006 Survey 400 senior human resource executives
  across industry and company size (BLS)
• 49.5 said percentages of two-year college
  graduates they hire would increase
• almost 60 said hires of four-year college
  graduates would increase
• 42 percent said hires of post-graduates would
  increase over next five years

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Workforce Crisis ICT Skills Demand

• Over 77 of all jobs in US will require some
  level of ability to use ICT by 2010.
• 9 of 10 fastest growing occupations through 2014
  are health or IT.
• OECD survey of 7 countries, including US, found
  minimal differences in intensity of computer use
  in occupations ranging from knowledge experts
  to high-skill information to low-skill
  service.

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Workforce Crisis SupplyDemographic Change -
Age Ethnicity

• Baby boom retirement began 2006
• Incoming generations 20 million fewer
• Number of 50-68 year olds in professional,
  management, service, office and administrative
  support, and sales occupations is projected to
  grow considerablysome, such as professional
  occupations, as much as 41
• Challenges in retaining workers beyond retirement
  age
• experience
• knowledge capture
• US Labor Force composition by 2014
• individuals of Hispanic origin will constitute
  16
• African Americans 12
• Asians 5.1

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Workforce Crisis Supply - Immigrants

• 20 M gap in numbers between baby boom and
  incoming generations will be filled by population
  growth from immigration, primarily from Mexico
  Central America
• Current profile of immigrants in US workforce
• 3/4 of U.S. workers with less than ninth-grade
  education are immigrants.
• Nearly 2/3 of low-wage immigrant workers do not
  speak English proficiently
• 29 of Limited English Proficient workers have
  been in the country for 20 years or more.
• Limited capacity in workforce/adult basic
  education systems to serve these populations
• BLS Capps, Randy, et al., A Profile of the
  Low-Wage Immigrant Workforce. The Urban Institute
  (October 2003). Found at www.urban.org/publication
  s/310880.html. Sum, Andrew, et al., Immigrant
  Workers and the Great American Job Machine The
  Contributions of New Foreign Immigration to
  National and Regional Labor Force Growth in the
  1990s (Boston Northeastern University, August
  2002 cited in Stacey Wagner and Phyllis Eisen,
  Closing the Immigrant Skills Gap, Center for
  Workforce Success, National Association of
  Manufacturers, 2005. Greico, Elizabeth. What Kind
  of Work Do Immigrants Do? (Washington, D.C.
  Migration Policy Institute, January 2004, cited
  in Jarrett Wagner and Eisen, op. cit., i.
  Multiple Origins, Uncertain Destinies Hispanics
  and the American Future (2006), The National
  Academies, National Research Council. Found at
  www.nationalacademies.org.

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Workforce Crisis SupplyAdult Literacy

• 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL)
  found alarmingly low levels of literacy,
  virtually unchanged since last assessment in
  1992.
• Only 13 of adults are proficient that is,
  qualified for information jobs and jobs
  requiring some ability to use computers and the
  Internet.
• Only 4 of individuals of Hispanic origin and
  only 2 percent of African Americans scored in the
  proficient category.
• Among U.S. adults overall, fewer than half are at
  the intermediate level for prose, which is
  deemed necessary for most jobs.
• A comparison of the literacy requirements in 2005
  between jobs in high-growth industries and those
  in declining occupations found the proficiency
  requirement for new jobs in projected high-growth
  occupations to be Intermediate, and the
  proficiency level for lost jobs in declining
  occupations to be Basic.
• Data from National Center on Education
  Statistics (NCES), 2003 National Assessment of
  Adult Literacy (NAAL), 12/05. Found at
  http//nces.ed.gov/NAAL/index.asp?fileKeyFindings
  /Demographics/Overall.aspPageId16

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Workforce Crisis SupplyAdult Literacy Basic
and Below Basic

• Prose Literacy 43 (93 M) at Basic or Below
  Basic
• Basic 29 (63 million)
• Below Basic 14 (30 million)
• Document literacy 34 at Basic or Below Basic
• Basic 22
• Below Basic 12
• Quantitative literacy 55 at Basic or Below
  Basic
• Basic 33
• Below Basic 22
• Non-literate in English 11 million adults

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Literacy Levels Proficient and Intermediate
Associated with majority of non-manual labor
jobs they refer to abilities such as comparing
viewpoints in two editorials identifying a
specific location on a map computing and
comparing the cost per ounce of food items.
Basic reading and understanding information in
short, commonplace prose texts locating easily
identifiable quantitative information and using
it to solve simple, one-step problems when the
arithmetic operation is specified or easily
inferred finding in a pamphlet for prospective
jurors an explanation of how people were selected
for the jury pool using a TV guide to find out
what programs are on at a specific
time comparing the ticket prices for two
events Below Basic ranges non-literate to
abilities listed below locating easily
identifiable information in short, commonplace
prose texts locating easily identifiable
information and following written instructions in
simple documents (e.g., charts or
forms) locating numbers and using them to
perform simple quantitative operations (primarily
addition) when mathematical information is very
concrete and familiar signing a form adding the
amounts on a bank deposit slip
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Workforce Crisis SupplyPost-Secondary Education

• Number of college graduates with highest level
  (proficiency) of prose literacy declined from 40
  in 1992 to 31 in 2003.
• 2005 study by the American Institutes for
  Research that tested graduating seniors from 2-
  4-year colleges, found prose proficiency among
  whites to be around 40, but that of blacks to be
  under 20.
• 2006 report measuring performance of US
  post-secondary education with other nations found
  that although US remains leader in the proportion
  of Americans ages 35 to 64 with a college degree,
  it drops to 7th place for 25- to 34-year-olds
  with a college degree.
• In states with highest levels of post-secondary
  education enrollment, only 65 of community
  college students return for their second year
  only 67 of students in four-year institutions
  complete degrees within six years of enrolling.
• i ii J. D. Baer, et al., The Literacy of
  Americas College Students, American Institutes
  for Research (2006), cited in Kevin Carey, The
  Black-White College Literacy Gap, Education
  Sector, found at www.educationsector.org/analysis/
  analysis_show.htm?doc_id364915.

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Concerns of Global EmployersTalent and
Organization

• Accelerating globalization, decentralization and
  reconfiguring of organizations and activities.
• Some economies most closely identified with low
  wages have begun to offer workers with technical
  skills, a result of an intense focus on workforce
  development.
• Study of more than 200 multinational corporations
  indicates that they are global shoppers for
  talent, not just seekers of low-wage workers.
• 38 plan to substantially change the worldwide
  distribution of their RD work over the next
  three years.

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Conerns of Global EmployersICT and Global
Integration

• Outsourcing (Domestic/Offshore) Corporate
  strategy for development and growth enabled by
  technology
• The digitization of knowledge work and business
  processes
• codification of certain types of knowledge work
  into rule-based procedures
• access to on-demand knowledge, information,
  learning
• ICT enables face-to-face interaction among
  individuals who are working remotely
• Global teams that allow integration of expertise,
  creativity, and assessment 24/7
• Telecommuting

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The New Workplace ICT Access and Communication
24/7

• Characterized by technologies that enable and
  encourage new organizations and processes, new
  efficiencies and innovations, new ways of
  learning, and communication without regard to
  time or place.
• Encompasses wide range of technology tools and
  applications and, most importantly, new patterns
  of communication
• Performance support tools,
• Mobile phones and pocket devices,
• Access to virtual spaces and activities, from
  office meetings to continual communication inside
  organizations, to worlds like Second Life
• Voice-based systems and Web-based self-service
  sites

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The New Workplace ICT Access and Communication
24/7

• Learning on Demand/Informal Learning
• The Water Cooler is Now on the Web
• Learning on Demand/Knowledge Capture
• Web 2.0 and Social Networking Blogs, wikis, and
  virtual environments.
• Value in communicating with employees and in
  gleaning knowledge from employees
  cost-effectively
• Wikis - Web pages that can be easily viewed and
  modified by anyone shared learning and
  collaboration among employees
• Heather Green, The Water Cooler is Now on the
  Web, Business Week, October 1, 2007, pp. 78-9.

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The New Workplace ICT Access and Communication
24/7

• Learning on Demand Virtual Worlds
• Environments that encourage continuous learning
  and encompass a variety of interactions and
  activities.
• Exposes employees to situations, circumstances,
  new opportunities and other kinds of interactions
  to assess behavior, provide learning, offer
  practice, develop collaborative activity, etc.
  more cheaply, frequently, with greater variation
  and more effectively than much time/place-bound
  training.

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THE New Workplace ICT Access and Communication
24/7

• Innovation
• Not just research/institution-based a process
  by which new ideas enter the economy and change
  what is produced, how it is produced, and the way
  production itself is organized.
• Information and communications technologies
  enable continuation of face-to-face interaction
  among individuals working remotely, or provide an
  extension of this interaction with colleagues in
  other regions and nations.
• Purpose-developed teams

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The Real Challenges for Workforce Development
Workforce Development Systems

• Public Sector and Private Sector
• ABE/ESL Federally funded share about 25 -
  just over 564M, providing access to fewer than 3
  million individuals (PY 2003)
• ESL Estimates are that existing ESL programs
  serve fewer than 10-20 of the individuals who
  need instruction
• WIA Employment and training programs under WIA
  served fewer than 800,000 adults and dislocated
  workers nationally in 2004 just over 400,000
  received training
• Employers Most workforce development in the US
  is provided by employers to their employees or by
  employers in partnership with other organizations
  to individuals not yet in the workforce.
  Estimates of annual expenditures by employers for
  training range from 46 billion to 70 billion.
• Community Based Organizations

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The Real Challenges for Workforce
DevelopmentThe Role of Post-Secondary Education

• Community and Technical Colleges
• Certificate-based workforce development
• Value-added Partnerships with employers
• Workforce development services options for WIA
• ABE, ESL, GED
• Path to 4-year colleges and universities
• Challenge for hard to serve/hard to find
• Inaccessibility
• Limited ROI for short-term attendance
• Distance learning instead of...

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The Real Challenges for Workforce Development
The Hard to Serve and Hard to Find

• Wages track closely to levels of education yet
  low wage workers face multiple barriers in
  acquiring the further education and training that
  can provide opportunities for getting and keeping
  jobs and for advancing to jobs with higher wages.
  
• Individuals with low/no levels literacy, skill,
  ESL communication are not in typical marketing
  range
• Financial, family, transportation, education
  credentials, other issues make it difficult to
  impossible to participate in place-based,
  time-regulated instruction.

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The Real Challenges for Workforce
DevelopmentDistance Learning

• Evaluations RD demonstrate value of distance
  learning.
• Distance learning enables not only skill
  acquisition but also ability to navigate the
  information workplace and the information world
• OECD 7-country survey of adult literacy found
  that in each of the 7 countries (which included
  the US), people who used computers consistently
  scored higher on average on the prose literacy
  scale than those who did not.
• Trend in employment services provided by
  government programs including WIA is to rely
  on individual to find out about necessary
  education/training programs
• Pew Internet and American Life Project found
  quite high percentages of
• Internet users went online to do research on
  school or training

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The Real Challenges for Workforce
DevelopmentDigital Literacy

• Multi-nation survey found minimal differences in
  the intensity of computer use in occupations
  ranging from knowledge experts to high-skill
  information to low-skill service.
• The ability to read text in English may not be
  the only initial route to knowledge.
• Most formidable remaining hurdles to widespread
  adoption and successful practice in distance
  learning
• Inability to use computers and the Internet
• Lack of knowledge and experience that provides
  the foundation for distinguishing accurate and
  useful information from false and misleading
  information
• Barriers to obtaining degrees and certifications
  for learning outside of accredited institutions.
  

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Workforce and Economic Development
AlignmentSample Practices

• ConnectKentucky develops and implements effective
  strategies for technology deployment, use, and
  literacy in Kentucky, creating both the forum and
  the incentive for interaction among a variety of
  people and entities that would not otherwise
  unite behind common goals and a shared vision.
• Michigan Regional Skills Alliances Locally
  managed partnerships formed to address strategic
  workforce issues affecting groups of firms
  operating in the same industry in a specific
  region.
• Managed by MI Department of Labor Economic
  Growth which incorporates multiple labor and
  economic development agencies to promote job
  creation and economic growth in Michigan by
  centralizing and streamlining the state's job,
  workforce, and economic development functions
  under one department. Icludes
• Bureau of Career Education, Offices of Adult
  Education, Postsecondary Services, and Labor
  Market Information Strategic Initiatives,
  Council for Labor Economic Growth, Office of,
  Bureau of Workforce Program, Michigan Opportunity
  Partnership, Veteran Services

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Workforce and Economic Development
AlignmentSample Practices

• Missouri Department of Economic
  Development/Division of Workforce Development
  Skilled Workforce Initiative
• One Stop Career Center Enhancements Regional
  Skills Gap Incumbent Worker Skill Shortages
  Youth Skill Shortages and Capacity Building
  Business Retention Services Micro Enterprise
  Training and Support and Community Workforce
  Solutions for Low Income Populations.
• Missouri Department of Elementary Secondary
  Education
• Career Education Initiative
• Career Clusters provide a way for schools to
  organize instruction and student experiences
  around 16 broad categories that encompass
  virtually all occupations from entry through
  professional levels. These groupings of
  occupations are used as an organizing tool for
  curriculum design, a model for guidance and
  instruction, and a mechanism for seamless
  transition from secondary education to
  postsecondary and/or career.

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Aligning Economic and Workforce Development Is
this what we really should be talking about?

• Education and workforce development in the United
  States is arguably being hindered by the very
  policies and systems that contributed to the
  nations success in the industrial economy.

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