A comprehensive energy future…

A rich discussion is taking place at the CoC’s ESIS Initiative Steering Committee meeting.  Many leaders are offering their viewpoints on the future of energy from the Former President of Shell, John Hofmeister, to Thomas R. Baruch, Founder and Managing Director of CMEA Ventures.

Many of the speakers expressed a need to have a comprehensive view of our energy future.  One member of the steering committee said, “Boon’s Picken’s approach would involve doing more drilling, but I think we need a more comprehensive approach.”

Another said, “We need a real underlying change in foreign and domestic policy.  The price of oil has brought to the forefront certain political realities.  The deepest reality and irony is the alternative path to oil is what will save America.  Not only will it be a new source of energy, but that it will shape our global thinking.  Our dependence is not only oil, it’s on the geopolitical issues that result from that dependence.  The friendships and alliances we have, the wars we fight, etc.  This is a great moment in history where opportunity and necessity align.  The world is waiting for what we can do.  God help us if America does not see it.”

There was also a focus on the world wide shortage of skilled workers to build and operate the next energy generating technologies be it fossil or renewable fuels.  As one member put it, everyone supports a green workforce, but neither the Obama or McCain campaign has a comprehensive plan to create it.

Talent is the Key to Success

By Randall T. Kempner

Manufacturers face a growing challenge.  Even though the old adage of the factory floor as dark, dirty, and dumb has given way to the new reality of safe, sanitary, and smart facilities, many manufacturing intensive regions now face a labor shortage.  Most manufacturing firms that survive have invested in productivity-enhancing technology instead of more labor.  Jobs in manufacturing now pay more and are less physically demanding.  But while there is less need for manual labor, the increased need for technology-savvy laborers is increasingly hard to meet.  

Over the past few years, the Council on Competitiveness has conducted interviews with hundreds of employers across the country as part of projects designed to support regional competitiveness.   In regions from Spokane, Washington to Rochester, New York, employers offered a common refrain when asked about challenges to their future success: “We have the skilled employees we need today, but are not sure about the ones we need tomorrow.”

There is little reason to doubt that talent will continue to drive both individual and regional economic prosperity.  According to the U.S. Employment and Training Administration, 26 of the 30 fastest growing jobs over the next ten years in the United States will require at least some post-secondary training.  Between 2004 and 2014, approximately 46 percent of all job growth is expected to be generated in professions (management, technical, high level sales) that require a college degree.  For the highest-paying jobs, an even greater percent will require college training. 

With no end in sight to the technological advances that enable the growth of knowledge based industries, the need for skilled workers in unlikely to abate.  Even entry level jobs will require basic knowledge of computer skills.  Higher level jobs throughout the economy will require significantly more capabilities, from technology comprehension to advanced management techniques to manage globally dispersed workers.   

As the U.S. baby-boomer generation retires and more global regions upgrade their ability to support high-value added industry, U.S. metro areas will find the competition to retain highly skilled workers intensifying.   As we look to the future, it seems increasingly clear that the level of education in the workforce will be the difference between regions that succeed and those that stagnate.

Excerpt from “The Talent Imperative for Older Industrial Areas“

Human Capital is a Competitive Differentiator

By Debbie Van Opstal

For advanced economies, the competition is heating up at both ends of the skills spectrum: low-wage, low-skill as well as higher-skilled scientists and engineers. But there are no predetermined victors—or losers—in the global skills race.

In its recent report, Thrive, the Council on Competitiveness identified four key areas of opportunity to create skills to enable American workers to compete against anyone, anywhere in the world.

Middle skills: One of the biggest untapped opportunities for the future will be for technology workers in jobs that require less qualification than a BA degree, pay relatively well and do not offshore easily. The importance of these workers to the economy is growing in lock-step with the sophistication and fragility of the technology infrastructure.

In manufacturing, for example, the loss of production jobs, often due to technology substitution, is offset by an increase in maintenance jobs that are increasingly high-tech enterprises themselves. And that may be one reason why the Dutch are launching a Maintenance Valley, in anticipation that world-class maintenance capabilities will be a magnet for investment.

Service skills: Many people think of service jobs as low-wage, dead-end jobs. But it is time for a reality check. The service economy is the engine of wealth creation and now accounts for the majority of jobs in most economies.

The high-value competition in the future will be for high-end (and tradable) services in which creativity, problem-solving, communications, computing and teamwork will become must-have skills. Yet there has been little attention or investment in service science—how to accelerate rates of innovation and productivity in the service sector—as well as a lack of interdisciplinary curriculum to create the skill sets workers need to succeed in the service economy.

Scientists and engineers: With the growth in science and engineering degrees worldwide, simply graduating more scientists and engineers cannot be the answer for advanced economies. What they will need are scientists and engineers who bring a higher value skill set to the table.

More than having simply a narrow knowledge of the discipline, this new class of Renaissance scientists and engineers will understand business value and will be as comfortable with an Excel spreadsheet as they are with a pocket protector.

Green skills: Sustainability promises to be the game changer in the decade ahead. Carbon considerations are already beginning to alter corporate investment decisions. Consider that Procter & Gamble is putting its first domestic greenfield manufacturing plant in the United States in more than three decades proximate to consumers.

Ironically, most of the attention has been on “green collar” jobs which are usually relabeled middle skills jobs. But, getting ahead of the curve on sustainability will demand even more profound changes in professional education – embedding principles of resource productivity and low-or-no carbon footprint into core curriculum. While some institutions are experimenting with new programs, these have yet to become widely available or common practice for MBA’s, architects, engineers, chemists, and other key professional groups.

The bottom line for advanced economies is this: When everyone is successfully copying the old model, it is time to invent a new one.

Featured in The Economist online debate series, Workforce Talent 2020.