Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

What Skills Will Students Need?

What skills students need is a burning question being debated in board rooms, classrooms, and think tanks. But what skills are needed is only part of the story and part of the solution.  The potentially bigger challenge - the elephant in the room - is how to teach them.  And the problem isn't only methodology.   In this video, you will see how our current 180-day school year is riddled with distractions, disruptions, and interruptions.  After viewing this, what do you think needs to happen to ensure our young people get the skills they need to compete in tomorrow's workforce?

 

H1N1 Will Expose Crisis of Finding Skilled Workers

On Friday,the Labor Department announced other uptick in unemployment. The announcement coincided with the arrival in my inbox of alerts of potentially significant skilled worker shortages.  How can that be? With over 15 million people unemployed and another nearly 10 million people under-employed (not counting those people who just stopped looking) how can we be talking labor shortages? 

The answer is really quite simple.  In the late 1990s, many people (including yours truly) fell prey to the theory that we could continue to create jobs at a rate greater than our ability to find people to fill them.  For many reasons including a combination of the Great Recession and technology that didn't happen nor is it likely to.  HOWEVER,  that doesn't alleviate a shortage of labor. 

By the early years of this decade, most of us realized that the gap wasn't one of quantity but quality. Even today with approximately 7 people available to fill every open job, many employers are unable to find qualified employees.

For example, as the outbreak of H1N1 spreads, U.S. laboratories will see a big surge in their testing workload, according to the American Society for Clinical Pathology. A large spike in swine flu screenings could clog a lab system already struggling with a shortage of workers, the ASCP said. Citing federal statistics, the ASCP said that 138,000 new laboratory professionals will be needed nationwide by 2012, but fewer than 50,000 will be trained. California and other Far West states are weathering a 53 percent shortage of medical technologists in hospitals, commercial labs and other diagnostic facilities; followed by 46 percent in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, and 42 percent in the Northeast.

At just about the same time, I read how reverse immigration was a trend the U.S. was beginning to experience. While that should bring relief to many people, it may not bode well for the U.S. future. While the U.S. was losing its global dominance as the land of opportunity and the fortunes and futures of China and India improved, the U.S. has started to lose many of its best and brightest workers.  While only constituting 12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of Silicon Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce holding bachelor's degrees and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. Immigrants have co-founded firms such as Google, Intel, eBay, and Yahoo!. While we may not need all these workers right now, we will need skilled, talented, and highly educated workers to help us recover.

The third example, but not definitely not the last of shortages to come, had to do with the likelihood that we will run out of hospital beds should H1N1 affect 35 percent of the population. (While that might seem almost surrealistic, that number is not far-flung should efforts to prevent a pandemic outbreak fail.) What does hospital beds have to do with labor?  The beds are just a symptom.  The entire health care system is already strained. When an H1N1 outbreak occurs, health care labor shortages will only be exaggerated.  Shortages already exist for skilled workers in the Emergency Rooms and Critical Care Units. Vacancies exist almost universally in the U.S. for primary care providers. Openings exist in nearly every hospital and medical practice for nurses, assistants, and technicians.  And health care providers aren't immune to the flu either. What happens when they get sick or call off to take care of family?

On top of all that during the first half of 2009, local health departments cut about 8,000 staff positions. In 2008, an estimated 7,000 public health jobs were eliminated. From 2005 to 2009, federal public health preparedness funding was slashed by 25%.

The Perfect Labor Storm is far from over.  Despite high unemployment, serious gaps exist in our ability to fill all the job positions available, many critical to the health and well-being of our economy and citizens.

For Young Workers, Job Outlook is Disastrous!

Young workers across the board are struggling to keep their heads above water. They’ve put off adulthood—put off having kids, put off education—and a full 34 percent of workers under 35 live with their parents for financial reasons, according to a new report just released by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO. The deterioration of young workers’ economic situation over the past 10 years is alarming.

And the situation doesn’t seem to be improving. Unemployment numbers a few weeks ago reported that about 1.7 million fewer teenagers and young adults were employed in July than a year before, hitting a record low of 51.4 percent. The percentage of young American men who are actually working is the lowest it has been in the 61 years of record-keeping, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

Highlights found In Young Workers: The Lost Decade: 

· Young workers are having more trouble than ever getting ahead financially. Times are even tougher for young workers of color, workers without college degrees and many women.

· Compared with older workers, workers younger than 35 are significantly less likely to be covered by health insurance or have retirement plans at their jobs, and are more likely to be unemployed. Today, 31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago. Only 47 percent have retirement plans at work, down 6 percentage points from 1999.

· Only 31 percent say they make enough money to cover their bills and put some money aside—22 percentage points fewer than in 1999—while 24 percent make less than they need just to pay their monthly bills.

· With higher unemployment rates in 2009 than young workers faced in 1999, it’s hard to find a job. But it’s even harder to find a good job. More than one in three young workers worry they will not be able to find a permanent, fulltime job with benefits.

· Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. In the age group 25 through 34 years old, traditionally a prime age range for getting married and starting a family, just 81 of 100 men were employed.

· For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16- through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, the numbers are catastrophic.

To read the full report: The Lost Decade

Wor-Wic Adds Social Media, Facebook, and Managing Generations to Fall Schedule | Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization

If you live on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, you’ll want to register today for these new courses just added to the fall schedule at Wor-Wic Community College. (If you live outside the region, contact Ira S Wolfe about on-site or web-based classes.)

When Boomers and Young Workers Collide: Capitalizing on Generational Strengths

COURSE 2130: Wed.; Oct. 7-Nov. 11 (except Oct. 14); 5 sessions; 8:30-11:30 a.m.; Tuition $160; Fee $40; Wor-Wic Campus/WDC304; Ira Wolfe.

 

Social Media 101: Link Me, Tweet Me, Nudge Me

COURSE 2111: Thurs.; Oct. 1 & 8; 2 sessions; 6:309:30 p.m.; Tuition $42; Wor-Wic Campus/WDC203; Ira Wolfe.

Marketing Your Business: Using Facebook

COURSE 2205: Sat.; Oct. 17-31; 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

COURSE 2206: Wed.; Oct. 21-Nov. 4; 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Both sessions will meet for 3 sessions; Tuition $59; Fee $10; Wor-Wic Campus/WDC308; Ira Wolfe.

For full course descriptions, Wor-Wic Adds Social Media, Facebook, and Managing Generations to Fall Schedule | Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization.

Are Baby Boomers overstaying their welcome as guests in the workplace?

The “I’ll work forever” attitude of the Baby Boomers is bringing movement up the career ladder to a complete stand-still.  It’s like waiting for a table in a busy restaurant when the guests at the table you want have finished their dessert and paid the bill but are busy chatting well beyond their “allotted” time.  The longer they stay, the more intense the glares and more uncomfortable everyone becomes.

Fellow blogger Sue Danbom posed an intriguing post this morning when she asked, “Brett Favre - Poster Child for "Un-retirement." Will Boomers Do the Same?”  There is no question the Baby Boomers will be hanging around the workplace longer than anyone ever expected.  For some organizations that's a good thing....for others, it's bad.  While Boomers may have the experience, they don't always possess the talent and skills needed to compete in the “new economy.” (Don't confuse the War for Talent with a shortage of people to fill the jobs.  The War for Talent is still being fought over skilled workers, with an emphasis on "skilled.")

Sue highlights Favre’s journey from his Hall of Fame career to the soap-opera history of his retirement to un-retirement to retirement.  Last week he announced his latest un-retirement. And she rightfully asks if Boomers, “Like Favre, will they have second (and third and fourth) thoughts after they leave the workforce?”

That’s a great question and I strongly believe the answer will be YES.  But management will be remiss if they don't anticipate the loss of Gen X who feel they are trapped by the likes of Boomers in Brett Favre clothing.   The postponed retirements and perpetual un-retirements is creating a measureable resentment in the Gen X cohort who are getting blocked by a thickening Gray Ceiling.  This ceiling is not only frustrating Gen X, but Gen Y too. 

For those organizations who don't take heed, they could easily lose the experience and wisdom of both the seated guests (Boomers) and the wait list (Gen X and Gen Y at the same time.

It’s also important to recognize that Brett Favre is not a Baby Boomer.  While Brett Favre's behavior might resemble that of an aging Boomer, he is a Generation X born in 1969.  So I ask, is Favre a Baby Boomer trapped in a Gen X body or is his behavior a sign of things to come for aging Gen Xers, too?

Are all your employees as smart as a 5th Grader?

Sadly, the answer is no.

Our economy requires that most workers have at least some postsecondary education or occupational training to be ready for current and future jobs in the global marketplace. But, more than 88 million working age adults have at least one major educational barrier—no high school diploma, no college, or English as a Second Language (ESL) needs. With a current U.S. labor force of about 150 million (16 and older), a troubling number of prime working age adults likely will fall behind in their struggle to get higher wage jobs, or to qualify for the college courses or job training that will help them join or advance in jobs that pay a family-sustaining wage.

A corollary to this scenario is putting our nation in a dangerous and potentially catastrophic situation.  With so many people possessing so few skills, is government and industry dumping billions of dollars to create jobs at a level to meet the talent supply or to meet the marketplace’s demand?

Forty percent of our workforce is at a level of literacy achievement or literacy attainment that falls below what one would reasonably think would be success in a workplace.  Up to this point, many of these individuals have made it with their extraordinary and admirable adaptive strategies.  Give them an “A” for effort and imagination. We all hear and see examples of those on almost a daily basis if you have any contact with people. 

But what happens in a dislocating economy with a lot of change?  A lot of people lose their job in which they have developed those adaptive behaviors and now they are forced to find a new job.  How many employees are now being asked to fill out a job application for the first time in 10, 20, or even 30 years. That’s when literacy deficits come to the foreground and really impair a significant segment of working age adults to connect.  It's in times of disruption, of market change, when business is shifting from one market segment to another market segment or adding new product mix, that literacy deficits among workers come very fast to the foreground.

In the U.S., 30 million people over age 16 — 14 percent of the country’s adult population — don’t read well enough to understand a newspaper story written at the eighth grade level, understand the directions on an over-the-counter cold medicine package, or “interpret” the times on a bus schedule?  How can we create jobs that will produce products and services faster and better than other countries when nearly 1 out of 7 working age adults can’t even fill out the job application?

Basic adult literacy can be defined as the ability to comprehend and use written and printed material. There are basically three types of literacy: prose, document, and quantitative.  Prose requires ability to read continuous texts like editorials, text that is written in paragraphs and discourse and long sentences.  Document literacy, on the other hand, rely on non-continuous texts.  Documents often contain just a single word or a phrase and lot of blank spaces and then they display information symbolically using graphical and special arrangements like graphs and tables and charts and so forth.  Quantitative literacy is the ability to use numbers that are embedded in either prose or documents and do something with those numbers.  By the way, this is different than numeracy literacy which, in addition to quantitative literacy skills, requires the ability to use formulas or have knowledge of algebra and geometry.  When we talk about basic literacy, we are talking about bare-bone basics – reading the time on a train schedule and understanding what it means.

Here is an example of how low we’ve placed the bar when we’re talking about basic literacy – and how many people don’t meet this standard.

Imagine yourself making a purchase  and the cashier hands you a rebate coupon.  To qualify for the rebate, the individual must write his/her name and address into the proper boxes on the form. To do this, the person must scan the document for the appropriate rows – name, street and number and PO, state and zip code.  To perform this task correctly, you have to search the coupon…this is a form of a document. You have to have some vocabulary knowledge.  You have to understand what zip code meant.  You have to understand the meaning of abbreviations like P.O. 

Incredibly, a recent study by National Assessment of Adult Literacy found that only 8% of adults in the below basic and about a little bit more than half of adults at the basic levels were able to perform a similar task successfully.  About 35% of adults were not able to provide a correct response at all. This translates to about 80 million people.  And important to note, the respondents or participants in the study were not penalized for misspelling!

What this means for employers and our nation as a whole is that about 45 percent of adults, approximately 90 million adults, in the U.S. don’t have even basic skills in reading, math, and other English skill levels to fulfill their roles as workers, according to a report released by the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education. 

To make matters worse, more than two-thirds of these adults lacking basic skills fall beyond the reach of programs to help them. And Federal adult education, training, and English language programs, currently being squeezed or closed due to budget cuts, reach only about 3 million adults a year.

Our current adult education system—designed for an agrarian and industrial society—is not equipped to address this urgent national need.  Nearly 1 out of every 3 students in the U.S. drops out of high school each year. That’s more than 1.2 million people who expect to enter the workforce sometime in their life without basic literacy skills, no less any special skills.  The U.S. is the only country among the 30 OECD free-market countries where young adults are less educated than the previous generation. We are losing our competitive ground to other countries in educational attainment at time that two-thirds of all the jobs created over the next decade will require a college degree (unless our stimulus dollars go to creating low-level jobs for the sole purpose of reducing the short term unemployment rate and not long-term productivity and sustainability.

The bottom line is this: Adult low literacy be connected to almost every socio-economic issue in the United States:

• Low health literacy costs between $106 billion and $238 billion each year in the U.S. — 7 to 17 percent of all annual personal health care spending.
• Low literacy’s effects cost the U.S. $225 billion or more each year in non-productivity in the workforce, crime, and loss of tax revenue due to unemployment.

My advice to employers is simple. 

1. Before hiring, test candidates on basic literacy and work skills.  Sadly, education and previous employment does not ensure basic adult literacy even if the employee has somehow accommodated and adapted to perform basic tasks.

2. Test your current workforce. Identify those hard-working, well-intentioned people who not only struggle through life but also insidiously add to your costs in the form of mistakes, lower productivity, accidents and health care expenses. 

3. Ask the questions: as you adapt to new markets, will your employees be able to respond? Even if all your employees pass the basic literacy and office skills requirements, how will they perform at the intermediate and advanced levels that you will need in the future?

And finally, if not most importantly - get involved in your community.  Mentor, volunteer, and/or financially support literacy programs.  Our future depends on it.

America's Deadliest Jobs - Forbes.com

Recently released Department of Labor data show that fishermen (and fisherwomen) and other workers in fishing-related professions were the most likely to die on the job in 2008. Of 39,000 fishing workers in the nation, 50 were killed, a rate of 128.9 per 100,000 full-time workers.

Logging workers and aircraft pilots have the second and third deadliest jobs. Eighty-two loggers died last year from work injuries, some of them caused by falling trees and malfunctioning cutting equipment. Ninety aircraft pilots died in crashes and other accidents. Transportation incidents are the most common cause of fatalities, overall. This year, 40.5% of the worker deaths, 2,053 of them, were transportation-related.

While putting in 57% of the total hours worked by Americans, men made up 92.7% of the workplace fatalities. The relatively few women killed were more likely to die from on-the-job homicide, though: 26% of the female workplace deaths were murders, compared with only 9% of the male deaths.

To read more, America's Deadliest Jobs - Forbes.com.

55 percent of employers using social networks to check on candidates.

More employers are utilizing social networking sites to screen potential employees. Forty-five percent of employers reported in a recent CareerBuilder survey that they use social networking sites to research job candidates, a big jump from 22 percent last year. Another 11 percent plan to start using social networking sites for screening.

Of those who conduct online searches/background checks of job candidates, 29 percent use Facebook, 26 percent use LinkedIn and 21 percent use MySpace. One-in-ten (11 percent) search blogs while 7 percent follow candidates on Twitter.

 

Why did 35 percent of employers find that caused them to “knock-out” candidates after searching online? The top examples cited include:

• Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information - 53 percent
• Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs - 44 percent
• Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients - 35 percent
• Candidate showed poor communication skills - 29 percent
• Candidate made discriminatory comments - 26 percent
• Candidate lied about qualifications - 24 percent
• Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer - 20 percent

Fourteen percent of employers have disregarded a candidate because the candidate sent a message using an emoticon such as a smiley face while 16 percent dismissed a candidate for using text language such as GR8 (great) in an e-mail or job application.

On the other hand, 18 percent of employers found online screening helpful and they hired candidates using the information as part of the selection process.

The top examples include:

• Profile provided a good feel for the candidate’s personality and fit - 50 percent
• Profile supported candidate’s professional qualifications - 39 percent
• Candidate was creative - 38 percent
• Candidate showed solid communication skills - 35 percent
• Candidate was well-rounded - 33 percent
• Other people posted good references about the candidate - 19 percent
• Candidate received awards and accolades - 15 percent

 Is it fair and valid to use information found on a social networking site to hire or not hire?  What relevance does what one does on their personal time have to do with ability to perform at work?  What do you think?

Class of 2013 Beloit College Mindset List

When the freshman class headed off to college in 1991, the headlines railed about government interventions, bailouts, bad loans, unemployment and greater regulation of the finance industry. The Tonight Show changed hosts for the first time in decades, and the nation asked “was Iraq worth a war?” 

Eighteen years later, the class of 2013 is arriving on campuses amidst headlines condemning bad loans and high unemployment while debating the value of government interventions, bailouts, and greater regulation of the finance industry.  Conan O’Brien has replaced Jay Leno and we’re still asking “was Iraq worth a war?”  

You might be thinking…the more things change, the more they stay the same.  That is until you take a deeper look – the headlines in 1991 were ink on paper.  Today the headlines are bits and bytes on electronic screens. Back in 1991, a man walking down the street and talking to himself was considered crazy.  Today, this same talking man might just be engaged in a conversation with his “Bluetooth” plugged in his ear.  

The 2013 Beloit College Mindset list, started in 1998 by Ron Nief, emeritus director of public affairs for Beloit College in Wisconsin, who was later joined by Tom McBride, professor at Beloit College, chronicles events, like the demise of print media, that have shaped the mindsets of the newest college class. It is these events that will shape their  points of view for the rest of their lives and ultimately define how collaborative or oppositional they are with other generations.

For instance, a favorite point of discussion among Baby Boomer managers is tattoos. Once considered to be the exclusive logo for drunken sailors and trashy girls, today they are quite chic and valued as a form of personal expression. This different point of view is creating quite a bit of tension in the workplace especially in the HR world.

Skimming over the list, it is easy to see how time flies and how differently the youngest Generation Ys experience the world. A few of more of my favorites on this year’s list:

1. Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Kevorkian, and Mike Tyson have always been felons.
2. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.
3. They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
4. Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
5. Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.
6. They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer.
7. State abbreviations in addresses have never had periods.
8. Condoms have always been advertised on television.
9. Women have always outnumbered men in college.
10. Amateur radio operators have never needed to know Morse code.
11. Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia have always been independent nations.
12. Everyone has always known what the evening news was before the Evening News came on.
13. Britney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations.
14. They have never been ‘Saved by the Bell.’
15. CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging.

The following comment posted on another blog sums up the difference just a few years makes:

"I was having my nails done last week when the young daughter of the person next to me said, “They didn’t have nail places everywhere when you were little? Geez, what kind of world was it back then?”

Read the complete 2013 Beloit College Mindset list.

What events did the Beloit College list miss?  Share them with us by posting them here or on our Facebook fan page.

Learn more about different points of view that bind and divide the generations in Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization.

Worker Shortage Foils Ford Bid to Build More Cars

OK...what am I missing here?   As a result of the Cash for Clunkers program, dealers' inventory for Ford Escapes had dwindled.  Ford requested volunteers to come back early from their summer shutdown week to work on production Friday and Saturday.  They cancelled the shifts due to lack of participation. I don't get it.  Isn't this the industry that has seen thousands of layoffs and two bankruptcies?  Wouldn't you think that workers would jump at the opportunity to work after being laid off or forced to accept reduced hours and benefits?  What lies ahead for the auto manufacturers and any other business that laid off or cut back employees?  Will they hold a grudge? Will they seek retribution for lost wages and benefits? Will they jump ship? Is the Ford situation a sign of things to come?

 

For the full article, go to Ford bid to build more cars foiled by worker shortage