With the mid-term elections over, elected officials on all sides need to deal with the economic problems facing us. Most experts predict slow growth for the economy and jobs.
Many people have lost jobs. Still, even in a bad economy, some Maine business people find it hard to find local people to fill the jobs they are advertising. Some have had to recruit out-of-state, and a few have had to recruit out of the country.
When so many people here are unemployed, why do job openings go unfilled? The biggest reason is the mismatch between the skills needed for the jobs that are available, and the skill sets of the people who need new jobs. This problem is going to grow, over the coming years.
The problem is that any of our historic major industries, such as manufacturing, mill trades, mining and logging, are declining in employment, while the knowledge industry is growing in importance for us.
Our workers need skills in math, science and technology that most of them lack. Jobs requiring financial analysis or engineering ability are going unfulfilled. In spite of this, few of the unemployed are taking courses in areas such as lab technology, computers, or accounting. This could affect our nation’s ability to have an economic turnaround. One of the solutions for more jobs is to educate or retrain our younger generation, as well as adults presently out of work.
The United States trails most other developed countries in the percent of its students who are studying math, science and engineering. China and India are emerging as future economic leaders now partly because of the investments they have made in these fields.
The old saying “knowledge is power” is especially true today. Globalization has changed the employment landscape in America. A number of years ago, American companies opened production facilities overseas. They went, for lower cost, non-skilled labor, to places such as China, India, South Korea and other Far East countries.
A good example is the shoe industry, once big in Maine. Shoe manufacturing was outsourced from Maine to less developed countries. The countries where we sent our orders to be processed learned how to produce and market their own products, and build their own companies. Given the enormous difference in wages, between workers in many less developed nations averaging $150 a month, and the average American employee wages of $2,000 a month, we can no longer compete with those overseas manufacturers in the marketplace. Today, factory and storage system automation has reduced the number of jobs, since automated productivity uses fewer workers. At the same time, there is a shortage of skilled workers who can run CNC (computer numerically-controlled) machining centers, which pay $17 to $20 per hour in wages.
Technology is playing a major roll in our economy, now. A good example of innovation is the Apple iPod. Other countries will probably copy it, which will account for fewer jobs for our technical workers, regardless of the state of our economy. At one time we led all countries worldwide in innovation, but now innovation is dispersed internationally.
We need high tech training to return us to innovation leadership, starting with our schools. Mathematics must be taught better, with more hours devoted to its study. Teachers must be better trained, or replaced, if students are to become mathematically adept, to fill jobs which will require more sophisticated job skills in the future.
To build our manufacturing base and secure future jobs at higher wages, a sense of urgency must be created at all levels in our public and private schools and colleges, to improve learning skills in the high tech trades.
On a college level, we have had a brain drain, as many foreign college and graduate students have left America and returned to their own countries, to compete against American industries. Our students must learn to be serious about their education and master the necessary educational skills for jobs to be filled in the future.
We need to retrain the currently unemployed or underemployed older adults. They can train for new careers in computing, finance, health care, business management, sales and marketing, for example.
The next two years will be difficult ones, unless job availability bounces back, as unemployment is tied to the economy. If the economy improves, if we have appropriate educational training, jobs will open up for the high tech skilled personnel.
The spirit of the American dream is still alive, if we prepare now, for job careers of tomorrow.
— Bernard Featherman is a business columnist and past president of the Biddeford-Saco Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached by e-mail: bernard@featherman.com.
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