The Challenges Ahead
In our central Illinois region, workforce development addresses the quantitative, qualitative and economic alignment needs of our workforce to make our regional community competitive in a twenty-first century global knowledge and innovation economy. In the next few years, our region will face some real workforce challenges. They will include:
- Quantitative Worker Shortfall. Over the next three decades, demographers project a worker shortfall. By 2030, workforce demand will outstrip workforce supply nationally by a projected 30 million workers. This will be caused by flat national, state and regional population growth and the retirement of massive quantities of baby boomers. In central Illinois, we project a shortfall of workers over the next five to 10 years to be between 7,000 and 18,000. This projected shortfall will have a devastating impact on our local economy. At the present time, we are already beginning to experience critical shortages in several key economic sectors, including healthcare and high-skilled manufacturing.
- Skill Alignment/Shortages. In addition to the quantitative shortages, the skill set of our workforce may not align with the emerging jobs of today’s and tomorrow’s economy. The global knowledge and innovation economy will require more education and skills to compete with global competitors. We have an unprecedented paradox in central Illinois. Literally thousands of individuals are losing their jobs as dozens of manufacturing-based industries close down. At the same time, we are beginning to see critical shortages of engineers, scientists, nurses, technicians, technologists and teachers. The resulting challenge is the mismatch between the skill set of those losing their jobs and the skills required for the existing and projected jobs of our growth industries.
- Entrant Workforce Deficits. Entrant workers are those young people transitioning from our education system to the workforce. Employers report major skill deficiencies of entrant workers in the areas of basic employability skills (i.e. attendance, timeliness, work ethic, etc.), math and science, reading/comprehension, problem solving, written communication, character education and personal responsibility. These are compounded by lagging U.S. educational attainment, high urban dropout and youth unemployment rates, and fewer students choosing engineering and science-related majors. Only about 50 to 60 percent of high school students in the state and our region meet or exceed basic academic competencies as defined by the Prairie State Achievement Exam. These figures are even worse for our urban areas. In addition, only about half of our inner city youth in the state and region are graduating on-time from high school. The loss of the human capital potential of our entrant workforce is a looming crisis that has long-term consequences for our region and state.
- Transitional Workforce Participation/Skill Attainment. Transitional workers are those individuals transitioning into and out of the workforce at any given time. They include the unemployed, economically disadvantaged, welfare recipients, the disabled, veterans, new immigrants, older workers and dislocated workers. Successful re-entry into the workforce may require increased skill attainment, training and/or education. With projected worker shortfalls it will become increasingly important to retain and return as many disconnected transitional workers back into the workforce.
- Ongoing Skill Development of Incumbent Workers. Incumbent workers are those individuals currently in the workforce. Lifelong learning and ongoing skill development will be essential elements to keep the skill sets of today’s workers aligned with new technologies and business processes.