“The problem is the skills mismatch…”
An article (excerpted below the cut) from the Dayton Daily News, where the local economic problems (Dayton has the highest foreclosure rate in the state of Ohio, and on my last visit, I was appalled by the poor condition of the former working-class neighborhoods due to neglect) have been eating the city alive.
The problem, of course, is that the city was built up since World War Two on semi-skilled factory labor; lots of people were recruited from rural areas locally, and from the rural south, to work in the GM, NCR and other factories there. Problems were that (a) the local schools have sucked for a long time, and that (2) while there is a lot of high tech stuff in the area, the available job seekers have no skills to go into the light industry / high tech stuff that’s needed. Either you go for massive retraining (which would require a significant schooling investment and the concomittant investment of a lot of cash from governmental bodies) or …well, magically recover the low-skill jobs angle, and I can’t see that.
As in many situations, it’s not that there’s no answer. It’s just that an answer that works would require effort and money that will be hard to get.
DAYTON - It’s time to do something, leaders of the Montgomery County Workforce Policy Board agreed Wednesday - and that something primarily means matching employers who need workers with workers who need jobs.
Today in Montgomery County there are more than 26,000 unemployed people, a jobless rate of 6 percent, according to data presented by Gary Williamson, executive director of the Montgomery County Job Center, and Jim Leftwich, the aerospace, defense and technology executive with the Dayton Development Coalition.
Meanwhile, there are 21,000 jobs vacant and more than 31,600 jobs expected to be vacant in the future.
The board has identified aerospace research and development, human sciences, information technology and advanced materials and manufacturing as the “growth sectors” of the future. Other areas - such as health care, core manufacturing, hospitality and other areas - remain important and require large numbers of workers, as well.
But finding employers who will be competitive and growing remains key, board leaders said. For example, current job vacancies in the area of advanced materials and manufacturing reach to more than 2,200.
“The skills mismatch is a big issue,” Williamson said.
And even among the area’s nearly 150,000 “total jobs,” the retirement of baby-boomers will create even more openings.
“You’ve got to reach out to your employers,” Leftwich told a standing-room-only audience at the Sinclair Community College Ponitz Center.
The board’s next step is to create teams and partners to begin the work of meeting employers’ needs. For example, Leftwich said the region can capitalize on Wright State University’s civilian aerospace medicine program as jobs from the BRAC - Base Realignment and Closure Commission - process are shifted to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.