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The "Inside Human Resources Blog" is moving to the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog.

As many of you know, I've published the second edition of my Perfect Labor Storm book in the fall of 2007.  I first coined the phrase "Perfect Labor Storm" in 2000 and like a "bad penny" I kept writing and writing......and writing about impending worker shortages and how workforce trends will change the way employers do business. 

A milestone date was 2008.  Back in 2000 this year seemed far away.  But now it's here and everyday I receive dozens of emails and alerts warning me about trends that are changing the ways employers will do business.

I've therefore decided to focus on updating the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog.  I hope you will take a few minutes to visit the blog and subscribe by email or RSS feed to Perfect Labor Storm updates.

Thank you for subscribing and reading the Inside Human Resources blog and please join me on the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog.

More Sorry Stats about Stealing and other Criminal Activities

The following Perfect Labor Storm stat just arrived in my inbox:

The U.S Department of Justice reports that 1 in every 32 adults has a criminal record, so the typical company of 500 employees would, on average, have at least 15 convicted criminals on their payroll.

This follows on the heels about my last post about teen attitudes related to theft, cheating, and lying.

38 percent of teens believe cheating is ok

I'm often asked why anyone would ever admit they stole, cheated or hit someone in anger.  The answer is simple: they believe this is acceptable behavior and their peers agree. 

The latest (Dec 2007)Junior Achievement/Deloitte Teen Ethics Survey confirms why honesty and integrity tests are a good pre-employment tool for employers who want to weed out candidates who might cheat, steal, fight or just not show up for worl. The findings should be frightening to anyone who is counting on the next generation of workers to drive their organization ahead.

Harris Interactive did the actual survey of American teens ages 13-18, and here are a few of the findings:

• 71 percent of teens say they feel fully prepared to make ethical decisions when they enter the workforce.

• 38 percent of that group believes it is sometimes necessary to cheat, plagiarize, lie or even behave violently in order to succeed. In fact, some 23 percent of all teens surveyed think violence toward another person is acceptable on some level. Of those who think so, the justifications for violence include settling an argument (27 percent) and revenge (20 percent).

• 24 percent of all teens surveyed think cheating on a test is acceptable on some level, and more than half of those teens (54 percent) say their personal desire to succeed is the rationale.

• Of the teens who think plagiarism is acceptable on some level, 37 percent think a personal desire to succeed is justification, and that number climbs to 51 percent among the students who feel an overwhelming pressure to succeed.

• 27 percent of all teens surveyed said it’s not fair for an employer to suspend or fire employees for unethical behavior outside of their jobs.

• 57 percent of all teens surveyed believe it is not fair for employers to make hiring or firing decisions based on material they have posted to the Internet, and another 19 percent weren’t sure if it was fair or not.

•  47 percent of teens said it was acceptable on some level to illegally download music without paying for it, but only 5 percent said it was acceptable to steal something from a store.

US Competes Around the World for Workers

Name this country.

A shortage of skilled workers, declining demand and the rising cost of finance, are key hurdles for businesses today.

About 38% of businesses say a skilled labor shortage is becoming a critical constraint.  This <Name this country>’s companies say the shortage has caused negative impact to their business.  Many blame the education system for the lack of skilled labor. Other reasons include poor people management, uncompetitive salary levels and an increasing number of career opportunities in the labor market, where demand has outstripped supply.

The survey identified a quantitative shortage in output from schools and a mismatch between employer demand and supply from the educational system. Meanwhile, the shortage of skilled managers, engineers and technicians also hinders plans to achieve higher value-added activities such as R&D and international expansion.

The most important skills required are in business decision-making (95%), planning (82%) and financial management (75%).

<Name this country> now needs graduates who can think, make decisions, do research, analyze problems and find solutions to the problems.  Yet the <Name this country>’s education system isn't producing this.

Source: Grant Thornton International, according to the company's recent survey of 7,200 businesses in 32 countries.

Answer:  Thailand

Business Author warns, If you think hiring is tough now, just wait

When Ira Wolfe asked local business leaders Tuesday how many of them have had difficulty filling a key position, about half of them raised their hands.

Exactly, Wolfe said, and it's going to get worse.

For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:

http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/11/14/news/news470.txt#blogform

It can't be true: India Worker Shortages

Call centers are symbols of India's economic boom. With Anglicized names and feigned Western accents, Indians handle credit card problems and troubleshoot computers, collect debts and conduct customer satisfaction surveys. Over the past decade or so, relatively high salaries in the call center sector have attracted thousands of applicants across the country. But now the boom is going bust because India's college graduates and young job seekers just don't want to be bothered with the business anymore.

Young people say it is no longer worthwhile going through sleepless nights serving customers halfway around the world. They have better job opportunities in other fields.

More about worker shortages in India and The Perfect Labor Storm

Oil isn't the only thing in short supply

In the next three or four years, there's expected to be a 30 to 40 percent shortage of technical and professional oil workers in the United States, according to Damon Beyer of Katzenbach Partners, a Houston-based management consultancy that specializes in the energy sector.

Over a quarter of the industry's highly skilled employees - petroleum engineers, process engineers, geologists, geophysicists and the like - are eligible for retirement in two years, said Beyer.

"It's a real issue," said Beyer. "Success in attracting new people into the work force is limited."

Worldwide, the industry's "people deficit" is expected to reach up to 15 percent by 2010, according to Pritesh Patel, an associate director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Continue reading about oil worker shortages and The Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

Shortage of workers stalls business expansion

"Workforce issues are the number one economic development issue in Oklahomaquot; says Terry Watson, with the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. "And it is an issue for which there is no single solution."

One recent survey reported that 39 percent of Oklahoma employers who wanted to expand but were unable to do so because they could not find the workers the companies needed, Watson said.

Studies conducted by the department, as well as other research, indicates state employers will need more workers than Oklahoma's population growth is expected to produce.

"The state that solves this problem first is probably going to win," Watson said.

Read more....

The Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 is fast approaching!

Nation's oil products pipeline system has few reserves for its workforce

The nation's largest oil products pipeline system faces the impending retirement of a quarter of its workforce and competition from other industries for new employees as it prepares a large expansion of operations, its chief executive told a US Senate committee on Nov. 6.

Oil and gas industry consolidation sharply reduced employment by more than 500,000 jobs from 1982 through 2000, Colonial Pipeline Co. President and CEO Norm Szydlowski told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during a hearing on energy industry employment.

"While Colonial's employment remained relatively stable during those years, we have had to deal with the same shrinking pool of candidates applying for careers within the overall industry. We are competing hard for candidates who may have fewer skills than candidates 10 years ago," he said in his written testimony.

Industry-wide, the petroleum sector estimates 27% of its workforce is within 5 years of retirement. That figure is the same for Colonial's workforce. The problem is worse among the people who operate the pipeline, where nearly one in five employees is eligible to retire within 2 years," Szydlowski said.

Read more about skilled worker shortages and visit the Perfect Labor Storm website.

How Aging Parents Will Impact Baby Boomers

Between 1958 to 1963 you knew The Naked City television show was starting when you heard, “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

Today, I receive dozens of alerts and news stories about how technology and demographic trends are changing our lives.  Individually these stories demonstrate how small groups of people around the world are being impacted by change and innovation as well as a shift in power going from the traditional economies - United States and Europe –driving global growth to developing nations.  We now have six billion stories in this naked world of others…..and this is just one of them.

The list of stories about worker shortages just keeps getting longer and longer.  But work shortages aren’t the only thing causing the Perfect Labor Storm.  The Perfect Labor Storm is the story about how changes in nearly every aspect of our lives today will affect how you do business tomorrow.

One of the most poignant stories came across my screen this morning.  This story is very real and for many of us baby boomers it is top-of-mind.  So top-of-mind that is distracts many of us from the demands and focus required to do our jobs.

What follows is just one Perfect Labor Storm story:  “For every 1,000 people age 65 and older who "retire" to Florida there are about 481 that leave. My father and my stepmother will soon be among those 481 -- provided my siblings and I can come up with a plan.”  Read more about how just one segment of how an aging population will change the way people work.