Costs of living --
housing, health care, taxes -- are too high.
Young people are looking West for a better
lifestyle. Companies are looking South for
cheaper ways to do business. The state education
system is not keeping up with the high-tech
times. The population is graying faster here
than in other parts of the country. Baby boomers
are getting set to retire.
But we cannot debate
the problem.
Connecticut is facing
a shortage of workers and unless we all move
quickly, the state could find itself in a dire
situation.
“As recently as last
week, when the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
was at our podium, the issue of slow population
growth in the county was flagged as a real and
growing problem,” said Christopher P. Bruhl,
president and CEO of The Business Council of
Fairfield County.
“The Fed’s economist
explained that our very low unemployment rate is
the result of a healthy economy and a shortage
of workers. The positive effect has been a sharp
gain in productivity, sustained over a number of
years. The negative effect has been loss of
opportunities in the region as businesses chose
to place their growth in locations with a
plentiful labor supply.”
The Business Journal last week reported on a recent survey that
said Connecticut’s population of
25-to-34-year-olds declined 30 percent between
1990 and 2004 -- the sharpest drop in the nation
according to the Carsey Institute at the
University of New Hampshire.
While the decline is
attributed in part to the aging of baby boomers,
there’s more to the story. And there’s no silver
lining.
The shortage of
skilled workers is expected to become more
severe as the boomer population starts to
retire. This dwindling pool of talented,
qualified workers will create economic
instability and stymie businesses’ growth
opportunities.
Consider some recent
reports, including the Fourth Quarter 2006
Economic Survey by the Connecticut Business &
Industry Association (CBIA) in Hartford.
Two-thirds -- 66 percent -- of executives who
responded expect difficulties in finding workers
to fill positions in 2007.
And, according to the
2006 CBIA/Blum Shapiro Survey of Connecticut
Businesses, some of the most challenging
positions to fill are skilled machinists and
other manufacturing jobs, sales, engineers and
customer service.
Anowar Shahjahan
decided to take matters into his own hands. The
president and CEO of Vertx Systems L.L.C. in
Weston was seeking information technology
workers for his software company. “I couldn’t
find enough talent, at the right price, to
support our budget,” he said.
So he traveled to
India last January and bought a company there to
supply support services to his business here. “I
was adamant about not doing outsourcing. So we
built up a company that is Connecticut based and
offers staff augmentation.”
Shahjahan has since
expanded his business to offer the service to
other companies in Connecticut. “We were doing
this internally, for us,” he said, and then
realized many of his colleagues had similar
difficulties finding workers for IT services,
clerical work and other ongoing operational
needs.
“We manage all aspects
of getting the labor … and our teams report
directly to the (client) company. We allocate
the resources … communication is very critical …
so we train your staff.”
Shahjahan employs 45
people in India and the business is growing, he
said.
That’s one solution,
but lawmakers need to step in to make the state
more conducive to business and foster job growth
here.
CBIA is calling on the
state to do that. “By expanding on last
session’s pro-growth agenda and addressing
Connecticut’s high health care, housing and
energy costs, lawmakers can renew the state’s
economic vitality, encouraging more business
investment and creating more jobs,” John R.
Rathgeber, CBIA president and CEO, said in a
statement.
And legislators must
stop introducing “anti-jobs bills” that
discourage companies from doing business here.
“To be successful, all
areas of government must work together. You
can’t be pro-growth and pro-jobs and
anti-business. Too often Connecticut takes one
step forward and two steps back,” Rathgeber
said.
As for The Business
Council, Bruhl said, “On our agenda for the
immediate future is to improve transportation
systems to allow workers from more distant
communities to reach our local jobs, to
accelerate the training and retraining of
marginally employed workers to enable them to
fill better jobs that are currently vacant, an
immediate expansion of ESL (English as a second
language) to help our immigrant work force
thrive, and to begin the process of developing a
regional response to vacancies created by
retiring boomers -- including recycling them
into different types of employment.”
In terms of the
growing shortage of qualified workers, Rathgeber
said the state needs to improve the public
education system, “especially in the areas of
science, technology, engineering and math,” and
strength education and job-training programs.
Joe Carbone agrees.
The president of The Workplace Inc. in
Bridgeport is a strong supporter of work force
training. In fact, his organization is set to
receive $5 million from the U.S. Department of
Labor for job development programs in Fairfield
County.
And the funding
couldn’t come soon enough. Carbone worries about
increasing unemployment in the region.
“The charge to the
community is to look at your existing potential
(work force) and think in terms of a retooling
effort,” he said.
In other words, make
“an opportunity out of a problem.”
One segment of the
population he points to is documented
immigrants, whose numbers continue to swell.
“What do we do with them when they get here, to
help them achieve the American dream?”
Education is the key.
“The adult education system is the doorway for
immigrants and folks that don’t have a high
school diploma or the necessary skills (needed
to compete in today’s workplace.)
The state needs to
focus on “the new constituents of the work
force,” he said, and what needs to be done
“structurally to better serve them.”
And businesses need to
play a bigger role, too.
“In the next few years
there’s going to be a new paradigm,” Carbone
said. “The business of education and training is
going to make its way into all businesses.”
That’s because as the
boomers begin packing and the pickings get
slimmer, the value of good workers will
increase.
“Look at the workers
you have, nurture them and invest in them, make
them as smart as you can to be competitive,”
Carbone said. “There’s no guarantee you’ll keep
them, but that’s the kind of era I think we’re
moving in to.”
At the same time,
business owners like Shahjahan will look to stay
ahead of the curve and develop their own
solutions.
“We need to help solve
the problem, not through the state or federal
government, but in real time -- today.”
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