Volume 5, No. 1, June 30, 2005NEW ECONOMY INFORMATION SERVICE E-BULLETIN |
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IN THIS ISSUE:
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July 11th Forum: "Partnerships for Sustaining High End Employment" On July 11, prior to the Department of Labor's Workforce Innovations 2005 Conference in Philadelphia, the Task Force on Workforce Development, a project of the Albert Shanker Institute and the New Economy Information Service, will hold a discussion entitled “Partnership for Sustaining High End Employment.” The discussion will center on the Task Force's recent report Learning Partnerships: Strengthening American Jobs in the Global Economy that calls for far-reaching changes in the way the U.S. manages its workforce skills and training efforts. The key recommendation of establishing labor-management "learning partnerships" stems from a study of Britain's increasingly successful campaign to increase the training and skills development of its workforce. In the report the Task Force warned that the skills base of the U.S. workforce will continue to erode without concerted efforts to train and retrain employees. Pressures from global competition, technological change, the pending retirement of the baby boomers create constant imbalances in the supply and demand for skills that our current workforce system is addressing inadequately. Local partnerships are key to helping communities, employers and employees confront these pressures. Pennsylvania has the 16th largest economy in the world with 45 percent of U.S. manufacturers who have been hard hit by the steady loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and thus is a perfect venue for a discussion of our ideas. The forum will be held from 10:00-1:00 p.m., July 11, 2005 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, 1101 Arch Street, Room 204AB and is also being co-sponsored by the National Association of Workforce Boards. Discussion leaders will include the following distinguished members of the Task Force: Paul Almeida, President of the AFL-CIO's Department of Professional Employees; Gregory Junemann, President of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers; Saul Rubinstein, Associate Professor of Rutgers University's Labor Program; and Stephanie Powers, Chief Executive Office of the National Association of Workforce Boards. Lynn A. Karoly, Senior Economist, Rand Corporation, will also be making a presentation based on her recent book, The 21st Century at Work (co-authored with Constantijn W.A. Paris).
Space is limited, but if you would like to attend, please call 202/879-4401 or e-mail: kschmerb@aft.org.
Can You Hear Me Now?
The initial attempt to repair the cable failed. The United Arab Emirates submarine cable-laying and maintenance subsidiary, Emirates Telecommunications Co, arrived at the site 30 miles off the coast several days after the failure to assist with repairs which included lifting the cable from under the sea.
A recent poll by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) showed that 36 percent of responding manufacturers reported that they had unfilled skilled jobs due to a lack of qualified applicants. To help meet this skills gap, the Center for Workforce Success (CWS), the workforce development affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers' (NAM) Manufacturing Institute has been working with NAM Employer Association Groups to help meet their recruiting goals by being a “workforce intermediary.” They have recently partnered with the National Network of Sector Partners (NNSP) to expand their model to the NAM sector trade associations. See the CWS web site for more information. The CWS is also conducting a comprehensive survey about the American manufacturing workforce. It will look at skills shortage, training, educational and recruiting issues that face manufacturers and layout the employment challenges and skills shortages facing American manufacturers. The report is due out in the fall.
The McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey's economics think tank, has just published a three-part series of reports on the supply of and demand for offshore labor entitled "The Emerging Global Labor Market.” The report looks at forces at work in offshoring in a range of industries and occupations, and the implications for wages, employment, and company decisions for selecting locations. The authors believe that offshore employment will grow gradually, with no sudden impact on overall labor markets in developed countries and will have less impact on patterns of employment than the decline in manufacturing employment. Some occupations are more amenable to offshore employment than others, with engineering (52 percent) and finance and accounting (31 percent) occupations being the most amenable. The greatest obstacles to offshoring are internal company barriers such operational issues, management attitudes, and structural issues rather than regulatory deterrents.
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This E-Bulletin is published by the New Economy Information Service (NEIS), a project of the Foundation for Democratic Education. NEIS provides information and reviews debate on the impact globalization and technological change has on democracy at home and abroad. Current interest focuses on how American workers can be equipped with the skills they need for decent employment and economic security, and on how the globalization of the economy and the expansion of democracy can strengthen one another.
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