It’s time to move from job creation to job training, according to Gov. Scott Walker.
“Anything that can help us find ways to get people the skills, and the education, the qualifications and incentives they need to get into the workforce in key professions that are in high demand in this state,” Walker said.
What Walker describes is called a skills gap, and the thing about that is a skills gap doesn’t exist in Wisconsin. As a 2013 La Follette School of Public Affairs study points out, “only a few occupations may see a skills shortage in coming years.”
There will be more educated people — people with associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees — than jobs tailored to those with higher education. If anything, there will be a skill surplus, but not a gap.
Furthermore, a study conducted in 2013 by Marc Levine of the Center for Economic Development at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, found “beyond the anecdotes of local employers, the Wisconsin … labor markets show no statistical evidence of a skills shortage.”
The doomsday prediction that Wisconsinites of the future will not have the skills to fill future jobs seems to be misleading, especially considering, as this study notes, 22 of the 25 jobs predicted by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to experience the highest growth do not need more than a high school diploma. Of all the annual job openings that will occur through 2020, 70 percent will call for a high school diploma or less.
While both of these studies were conducted in 2013, the latest data proves there is still no statistical evidence of a skills shortage. Referenced in Levine’s research, The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine Data Series tracks vacancies online for positions in states across the country.
In Wisconsin, according to data collected by HWOL from March 30, there are 1.32 people unemployed for each advertised vacancy, which is better than the national average of 1.51. But this still suggests Wisconsin is affected by underemployment, meaning workers are becoming too skilled for the jobs available.
Two areas requiring higher education are prone to grow though. According to the La Follette School of Public Affairs study, workers skilled in computer and informational systems and human resources are of a rather significant need. The study predicts by 2020, at best, an 11,520 person skill gap in computer and informational systems jobs and 2,350 person skill gap for jobs requiring human resources.
What can be done to promote these areas of employment?
Instead of offering job training programs and worker development programs, Wisconsin should focus on moving toward a highly-skilled economy or easing the current transition from being a student to entering the workforce.
Promoting a highly-skilled economy means investing in venture capital firms and startup businesses, providing early-stage loans to startups. Additionally, programs that target and encourage adults already in the workforce and high school students to enter these fields can help to reduce the size of the gap. Additionally, a higher-skilled workforce would call for more technical workers in general, think workers in the STEM field.
To ease the transition from high school student to worker, the study suggests policymakers “could encourage school districts, potentially through relatively small grant programs, to expand their experiential learning initiatives. These programs could include expanded vocational for-credit classes, field trips to worksites, job-shadowing and apprenticeship programs.”
Flexibility of curriculum and changes to the curriculum should be more to help ease the transition from student to professional.
Walker and Wisconsin would be best off with training more high-skilled workers if and only if there can be jobs requiring a higher education created within the state. Otherwise, we just create an underemployed population.
Aaron Reilly ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in comparative literature and Russian.
