Corporate Voices has issued a comprehensive position paper and statement of principles that spotlights workforce readiness challenges and solutions.
Titled Tomorrow’s Workforce: Ready or Not: It’s A Choice the Business Community Must Make Now – the report identifies the challenges facing the business community and highlights actions that can be taken now to help solve a problem that involves not just America’s young people, but one that touches the lives of everyone.
“Businesses throughout the United States are facing a crisis. Young people today – the workforce of tomorrow – are not prepared to succeed in a knowledge-based economy,” Donna Klein, CEO and president of Corporate Voices for Working Families, said. “This crisis is one that threatens our nation’s ability to compete in a rapidly changing and more competitive global economy. And if left unresolved, it is a crisis that will undercut the standard of living and way of life for our children – and theirs. But it is also a problem with solutions, if we can harness the skills, resources and vision of all the stakeholders – parents, business leaders, educators, community leaders, policy makers, and young people themselves.”
Corporate Voices released the research findings and analysis in conjunction with the Workforce Innovations 2008 conference being held in New Orleans July 15 -17. The conference is co-hosted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD). Workforce Innovations promotes collaboration among leaders from workforce development, business, economic development, education, community-based organizations and philanthropy.
“Corporate Voices for Working Families and our 50 partner companies believe that different approaches must be taken now to prepare our nation’s young people – our next generation of workers and citizens – to be successful in school, on the job and throughout life,” Klein said. “To achieve results, we need a comprehensive, coordinated and integrated system of learning and development that provides all young people with the opportunity to develop the skills they need.”
Copies of the Corporate Voices’ workforce readiness position paper, statement of principles and executive summary can be downloaded at our Web site.
With the baby boomers’ retirement looming in the near future, many fear about the strain it will place on the United States economy. In a New York Times article “For Good Retirement, Find Work. Good Luck,” Steve Lohr gives an overview of the negative effects of early retirement on the economy and offers some helpful insights regarding what can be done to lessen the financial blow.
And this isn’t just an issue involving individuals. It’s an issue that is important from the standpoint of workforce readiness today — and will be even more so in the years ahead.
Lohr explains that if the age of retirement is postponed three to four years, there will be a significant difference in the lifestyles of the retirees and the economy. For instance, currently the average age of retirement for women and men is 63 and 62 respectively. However, if the baby boomers pushed pack their retirement to 66 rather than 63, it would add approximately, “$13 trillion to the economy by 2025, or about a year’s total output of goods and services today.”
While it is not possible for every senior to stay in the workforce until age 66, it is a viable possibility for many. However, they are often not given the chance to continue working.
Unfortunately many companies do not actively recruit older workers or make an effort to retain them. According to Joanna Lahey, an economist at Texas A. & M. University, “If there is a failure in the market for older workers, it is the result of ‘“statistical discrimination.”’
Statistics show that companies are hesitant when it comes to hiring and retaining older workers because they believe that older workers are “less energetic, less productive, adaptable and more likely to have outdated skills than younger workers.”
However, a report by Corporate Voices for Working Families found that:
“While mature workers are valued for their knowledge, reliability, and dedication (74 percent), only half of the responding organizations reported that they actively recruit mature workers. Those that do report that they attempt to rehire retired workers (25 percent) and turn to non-traditional recruiting sources, such as community networks (20 percent).”
According to Lohr, other statistics show that times have changed and being 65 today is radically different than being 65, 40 years ago. Therefore, while retiring at 60 was normal for those in the workforce in the past, today the baby-boomer generation is capable of a remaining in the workforce longer.
One suggestion Lohr makes to facilitate the retention of older workers is to no longer take money out of workers salaries for Social Security and Medicare after a certain age and not longer require companies to contribute on behalf of workers past a certain age. With this “paid up” incentive, and other obvious benefits to the economy, it seems as if working longer can lead to living better.
And it’s an issue that has implications for individual retirees, our economy and our nation’s future workforce.
There are a group of hopeless and uneducated young adults in our nation who are struggling to find even minimum wage jobs.
Working ‘just to get by’ isn’t as possible as it used to be. In fact, for 4 million young adults, a job at all is extremely questionable.
After reading an Op-Ed article — “Out of Sight” — by Bob Herbert in the The New York Times last Tuesday about our nation’s at-risk youth, I found some breathtaking statistics about the lack of job opportunities.
According to Herbert, a disastrous unemployment number was released last Friday, claiming, “The official jobless rate had jumped one-half a percentage point in May to 5.5 percent – the sharpest spike in 22 years.”
The problem is that there is a vast group of young-adults and teenagers, between the ages of 16 to 24 years old, who are not in school and face tough odds in the job market.
According to Herbert, these “youngsters” are trying, but they are losing hope. After searching and searching for a job it is easy to get discouraged.
The summer job market, which has long been an important first step in preparing teenagers for the world of work, is shaping up this year as the weakest in more than half a century, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
My first question is what can we do to open up job opportunities?
And next, are there no second chances for the underprivileged? A basic education is a first step in the right direction, which should be easy for each and every person in our democratic nation.
Everyone has something to offer in this country and it is a shame to see such bright young individuals not given a chance. Job opportunity is just the very first step to making an individual make a difference in this world.
And David Jones, president of the Community Services Society of New York, a Corporate Voices strategic partner, provides some key insight in the context of Herbert’s column.
“These kids are being challenged in ways that my generation was not,” said David Jones, the president of the Community Service Society of New York, which tries to develop ways to connect these young men and women with employment opportunities, or get them back into school.
It is extremely difficult because, for the most part, the jobs are not there and the educational establishment is having a hard enough time teaching the kids who are still in school.
“Schools have not made much of an effort to bring this population back in,” said Mr. Jones. “Once you fall out of the system, you’re basically on no one’s programmatic radar screen.”
By: Amy Simon
Amy is a journalism major at Penn State who is interning this summer with Corporate Voices for Working Families.
I’ll admit it. It’s hard for me to grasp that we are heading for time in this country when there are more jobs than available workers. But from a number of projections and estimates — many included in our Corporate Voices research and studies — it’s a fact. And something that we need to start dealing with. It has important implications for education, business, young and mature workers and our country as a whole.
Yet I live in Ohio. We’ve lost thousands of high-paying management and manufacturing jobs in the last decade. And typical is the situation facing thousands of graduates of our colleges and universities here who have education degrees. Highly trained and highly qualified. But few teaching jobs in Ohio. So they are enthusiastically recruited by school systems out of state. At the same time, Ohio, particularly in the Northeast industrial part of the state, is attracting new jobs that require skilled workers. And as I understand it, some of these jobs even now go unfilled.
The contrast with other states, however, is jarring. Take Iowa as an example. A story printed May 31 in The New York Times — “As Job Surplus Grows in Iowa, Workers Are Calling the Shots” — provides an interesting case study of what we are likely to face throughout the country in the not-to-distant future. Here’s from the article:
As rising unemployment and layoffs beset workers around the country, Iowa faces a different problem: a surplus of jobs. Or to put it another way: a shortage of workers. A survey of companies by Iowa Workforce Development, a state agency, found as many as 48,000 job vacancies, in industries including financial services — Des Moines trails only Hartford as the nation’s insurance capital — health care and skilled manufacturing. One estimate projects the job surplus to reach 198,000 by 2014, with vacancies increasingly in professional positions. Greater Des Moines alone faces a shortfall of 60,000 workers in the next decade.
The state provides a small, advance view of what some economists predict will be a broader shortage of skilled workers in the next 20 or 30 years, as tens of millions of baby boomers retire from the workplace, and the economy produces more new jobs than workers. Potential consequences include slower economic growth and competitiveness, as well as higher wages for skilled workers and greater inequality.
Estimates of the national shortage run as high as 14 million skilled workers by 2020, according to widely cited projections by the labor economists Anthony P. Carnevale and Donna M. Desrochers.
Elyse Rosenblum, who manages workforce readiness projects for Corporate Voices, is putting the final touches on a white paper and other material that examines this important issue. We’ll distribute that information soon.
And the next time I talk to Elyse I’ll ask her what’s going to happen in Ohio. That will be interesting.
I spent several years teaching media writing at Kent State University. And during that time I developed an even greater appreciation for writers who can make their points concisely and forcefully. Bob Herbert, who writes a column for The New York Times, is one of the best.
Here’s an example — and it involves the issue of workforce readiness and high school dropouts. In his column May 17 — “Hard Roads Ahead” — Herbert writes:
At a time when the nation is faced with tough economic challenges at home and ever-increasing competition from abroad, it’s incredible that more is not being done about the poor performance of so many American high schools.
We can’t even keep the kids in school. A third of them drop out. Half of those who remain go on to graduate without the skills for college or a decent job. Someone please tell me how this is a good thing.
Well, Bob Wise certainly isn’t going to tell Herbert or anyone else that. Wise, the former governor of West Virginia, is now president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, described by Herbert as a “policy and advocacy group committed to improving the high schools.” He’s also written a book on the subject: “Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth and Our Nation.”
And in addition to mentioning some key points from Wise’s book, Herbert also highlights the recent announcement that the AT&T Foundation was sponsoring “a $100 million initiative to address the high school dropout problem and improve the readiness of American teenagers for college and the real world of work.”
This issue of workforce readiness is a key priority for Corporate Voices for Working Families and our member companies and strategic partners. And Elyse Rosenblum, an expert on this subject with Corporate Voices, is putting the final touches on our statement of principles on workforce readiness as well as a comprehensive white paper on the subject. Copies will be available soon.
In the meantime, here’s the conclusion to Herbert’s column:
An issue that is front and center in the campaign is the economy. We’re looking for ways to turn things around for the short and long term. One of the answers in this technologically advanced, highly competitive, increasingly globalized environment is staring us right in the eyes.
As Mr. Wise put it, “The best economic stimulus package is a diploma.”
In total Bob Herbert wrote 765 words. But he sure said a lot: concisely and forcefully.
The United Way of America is announcing at its annual meeting in Baltimore today that “it will direct its giving toward ambitious 10-year goals that would cut in half the high school dropout rate and the number of working families struggling financially.”
The nonprofit organization also wants to increase by one-third the number of youths and adults considered healthy. The announcement comes as it releases a report detailing a precipitous decline in key education, personal finance and health indicators.
The United Way of America has already joined with Corporate Voices for Working Families the Forum for Youth Investment and other national organizations to launch the Ready by 21 Challenge. This initiative, simply stated, challenges states and local communities to improve the odds that young people will be successful in school, on the job and throughout life.
Rucker writes in The Washington Post article that “today they [United Way of America] will pledge to spend the money raised in the next 10 years to support programs directly related to education, income and health care.” The article continues:
The United Way is the largest U.S. nonprofit organization, with about 1,300 affiliates that collectively raise more than $4 billion a year through workplace campaigns and other private donations. By harnessing its giving power, the United Way is trying to reignite a social movement of the philanthropic, government and corporate sectors to improve conditions for working families.
In late February, six of our nation’s leading nonprofit organizations – the Forum for Youth Investment, United Way of America, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the National Conference of State Legislators, the National Collaboration for Youth, and the American Association of School Administrators – came together to launch the Ready by 21 Challenge. Quite simply, they are challenging states and local communities to improve the odds that young people will be successful in school, on the job and throughout life.
Here’s a presentation that Donna Klein made at a conference sponsored by the Forum for Youth Investment to launch the Ready by 21 Challenge.
And here’s an op-ed article by Donna and Karen Pittman, Executive Director of the Forum for Youth Investment.
Ensuring Young People are Ready by 21
Twenty five years ago, the blue ribbon National Commission on Excellence in Education stunned the country by declaring:
“Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. . . If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. . . we have dismantled essential support systems . . . We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.”
Well, we’re still a nation at risk. In fact, the risk is far greater today than 25 years ago. And right now we need to harness all of our resources and creative energy toward reaching one goal: ensuring young people are ready by 21. Here’s why.
Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers’ Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce, a comprehensive study jointly designed and executed by Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Conference Board, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the Society for Human Resource Management offers three stark realities that undercut our nation’s ability to compete now and in the future:
• Employers report major deficiencies at every educational level. Forty percent report that the overall preparation of high school graduates is deficient, and more than one quarter of four-year college graduates are deficient in their written communication skills.
• Employers place a premium on applied skills that allow workers to bring basic, technical and content knowledge into the workplace. Professionalism/work ethic, communications (oral and written), teamwork and critical thinking are the skills employers now value the most.
• Employers see increased need for a more far-reaching set of skills on the horizon. Foreign language, creativity and innovation, and personal health and wellness management are areas employers believe will become increasingly important over the next five years.
There is an urgent need to prepare our next generation of workers for the competitive challenges of the 21st century, and we cannot afford to approach this issue as business as usual. The time has come to affirm our nation’s commitment to ensuring that all young people are ready by 21 – ready for college, work and life.
There are encouraging signs that we are ready to respond. In late February, six of our nation’s leading nonprofit organizations – the Forum for Youth Investment, United Way of America, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the National Conference of State Legislators, the National Collaboration for Youth, and the American Association of School Administrators – came together to launch the Ready by 21™ Challenge. Quite simply, they are challenging states and local communities to improve the odds that young people will be successful in school, on the job and throughout life. Why?
The current way we approach preparing young people is not working. We fragment our efforts into narrow silos, shifting our focus from one area (such as teen pregnancy) to another (such as youth violence), rotating our attention and resources without ever providing the core family and community supports young people need to succeed. We approach young people as a set of problems to solve (keep them from dropping out, getting pregnant, breaking the law) rather than as a set of resources to develop (preparing them for success). We stare at academic test scores so long that we fail to notice that young people also need to grow in social, emotional, physical, civic and cultural ways.
The Ready by 21 Challenge offers our nation new hope for bringing precision to our passion. It provides a new way of thinking and acting that weaves fragmented efforts into a seamless set of family and community supports, helping people succeed in all areas of their lives.
We can be successful. President Bush recently signed an executive order, “Improving the Coordination and Effectiveness of Youth Programs,” a small first step toward what we hope will one day be the full implementation the Federal Youth Coordination Act passed by Congress. Government and nonprofits are realizing that we have to tackle this growing problem now. We can no longer wait.
Our nation remains at risk. If we wait another 25 years to ensure that our young people are ready by 21, it will be too late.
Ranging in age from 21 to 29, they [millennials] have the potential to create lasting change in the workplace because of the way they live, communicate and view their jobs.
The article points out that a recent study by JWT, a New York-based advertising agency, found that “millennials, compared with other generations, place a higher value on work-life balance, expect their employers to adapt to them and are more likely to rank fun and stimulation as one of their top five ideal job requirement.”
And that raises another challenge — although it is not addressed specifically in this article. How do you integrate into the workplace two generations that for the most part have very different values and approaches to work: millennials and baby boomers?
And equally important — how to you retain the experience and expertise of the baby boomers in the midst of a major demographic shift?
In October of 2006 WorldatWork, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and Buck Consultants conducted an
Internet-based survey to evaluate the impact of an aging workforce on the American marketplace. A copy of that survey — The Real Talent Debate: Will Aging Boomers Deplete the Workforce? – is available on our Corporate Voices Web site.
I’m a little late getting to this story. But it’s one that raises some issues that everyone should be concerned about. Bob Herbert’s column in The New York Times (April 22) — “Clueless in America” — is about as good as it gets when looking at the problems facing our nation unless we improve how we educate current and future generations.
Herbert looks at the alarmingly high number of young people who drop out of school. As reported by the America’s Promise Alliance, an American teenager drops out of school every 26 seconds. And this issue of workforce readiness is one that Corporate Voices for Working Families focuses on.
Herbert writes:
Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.
And then he makes a point that extends this problem way beyond the workforce, embracing the very nature of our democracy.
These and so many other issues of crucial national importance require an educated populace if they are going to be dealt with effectively. At the moment we are not even coming close to equipping the population with the intellectual tools that are needed.
Three Corporate Voices partner companies, CVS, IBM and Hewlett-Packard, are featured in the article for their programs and activities designed to retain — and continue to benefit from the skills and expertise of — older workers through flexible work strategies and other arrangements.
Yet despite these positive examples, the article mentions that “programs to hold onto older workers are far from ubiquitous.” The article points to a recent study conducted by Ernst & Young:
“The accounting firm Ernst & Young recently asked 150 large companies how they were handling the graying workforce. The norm was benign neglect.”
Those comments mirror the results of a survey conducted in October 2006 by Corporate Voices for Working Families, WorldatWork and Buck Consultants. The primary objective of this survey was to assess the overall degree to which respondents considered the pending retirement of baby boomer employees, and reduced employee available in succeeding generations, to be a significant issue.
Only 42 percent of employers believe that the aging workforce issue is significant, while 29 percent believe the issue has little or no significance.
More than 80 percent of respondents, regardless of industry, have not surveyed their mature workers to determine future work preferences or intentions.
The greatest potential risk identified with the exodus of mature workers is the corresponding departure of senior leadership, followed by middle management and technical talent and knowledge workers.
This is a significant issue relating to workforce readiness and working families.
Have an example of how your company is managing this issue effectively and creatively? We would welcome knowing about it and sharing the information with others.
Posted by Rob Jewell
