A Chaotic Time for Workforce Development Without a Clear Path Forward…Yet

by Frank Gibson, CEO and Interim Chairman of the Board of the North-Central Ohio Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership, Workforce Development Advisor, retired from The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center

Technological advancements have derailed many a state’s workforce development strategy, which is happening at an accelerating rate. It makes one wonder what is the value of new technologies – requiring massive capital investments that drain capital and priorities for everything else – as students, workers, families and communities are pushed aside and collaterally damaged at each turn. The ones that barely recover before the next wonder technology is released, changing directions once again.

Increasingly, these advancements are forced onto a weary society, leaving more dazed, confused and broken Americans behind. Nobody is against technology. But without planning for its equitable purpose in a capitalist democracy meant to float the most boats intending, instead, to deliberately and overwhelmingly benefit its wealthy investors, should concern everyone.

The lead time for major education policies and planning are at least 2-3 years. Relying mostly on backward-looking data, a lot goes into meaningful adjustments on a national scale to keep pace with changing national workforce needs for employers. Then comes the subsequent changes to regional and local education products and services to accommodate changes in national policies, which can take 2-4 years before actually perfected and implemented in a impactful way, and 2-4 years before a student completes a program.

Since the introduction of widespread use of computers and related technology in the 1980’s, the rate of change in job requirements for an evolving marketplace had been accelerating. Then came the off-shoring of jobs which eliminated the job opportunity before a student could finish a degree program. The outdated design of curricula and slow reaction time of institutions made it harder and harder to keep up. Workforce development became a sort of “Wack-a-mole” game, with the student, worker and employers most often the losers.

Because of the declining effectiveness of workforce development, employer’s commitment of resources and efforts toward training new-hire workers – so their fresh skills are immediately applied to tasks the employer needs performed and reason for employee retention – has steadily declined to almost an informality.

Those workers that made the cut were underdeveloped and underutilized, exhibiting enormous collective unused capacity. Perhaps this was due to employer’s unfortunate belief that employees are an accounting “cost” and are easily expendable when shareholders need increased short-term returns every quarter – even at the expense of long-term organizational capacity. Perhaps to the employer’s declining memory of how critical training efforts are to maximizing their return on worker investment.

Then came Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). The four phases of the technology life cycle – R & D, ascent , maturity and decline – have been compressing, with replacement technologies being planned before the first is released. Jobs, now, do not need to be off-shored to disappear. Jobs can now evaporate before our eyes, making it nearly impossible for educational institutions to do what they do best – prepare graduates with a strong foundation of core knowledge, skills an abilities and industry general-technical skills at a sane, purposeful pace. Graduates are denied a chance to land a job before it is gone and their foundation begins to crumble for absence of applying it. Students willing to devote 2 – 4 years of their life to transform themselves into a invaluable candidate for the workforce and to launch, what they hope will be, a sustainable career and future, are left at a loss on so many levels.

Adding insult to injury, as with the physical off-shoring of jobs, those who are still employed are forced to “train” AI to assume their role before termination – even if there is no way in hell AI can perform their role to the same level. When it comes to physical, multi-factor task performance, expertise cannot be trained; it is something a worker develops through repetition of tasks, increased intuition from experience, learning from errors and sharing experiences with peer subject matter experts. Information about the task can be learned, but performance in context is a much different matter.

More tragic still is that the stock market drives national policy. Disturbing amounts of capital controlled by a consolidation of single-minded individuals take the stock market on a magical ride to their increasing self-enrichment – until, of course, returns dwindle and they take us all on the next “road to Eldorado” to enrich themselves even more. Potentially successful graduates are tossed on the heap, their credential’s value dissipating as every month goes by, losing hope in salvaging their personal investment since any new job target can evaporate in an instant.

Right now, employers are not taxed for jobs that are lost to technology. In fact, there are tax incentives and subsidies for automation capital investments. In fact, those working taxpayer’s taxes are going to those who are looking to make them obsolete. If we continue down this path we will see educators and educational institutions disappearing faster than it has been, making it harder and harder to rebuild out of necessity one day. Employment will be more like a “spoils” or “patronage” system for a lucky few. Hopelessness will rise along with poverty and health issues. Families and communities will suffer. Then what?

Apprenticeships are a good idea and can lead to higher incomes for those finishing. Currently, AI data center construction is juicing the construction trade apprenticeship levels until that fades. But for other types of apprenticeships, active employer participation is vital. We know apprenticeships, like those legacy programs for the crafts, are most effective when related technical instruction is delivered concurrently with directly relevant task-based training in which an employer sees value. Anything less is just “learning” that can be just as dissipating as  education without immediate application. The sad fact is that, except for the construction and trades, apprenticeship programs in the U.S. for manufacturing increased only slightly between 2016 and 2021 – by around 500, many hosted only by a community colleges, not employers – but have declined ever since.

The issue has never been about “skill gaps” of workers entering the workforce, this is about a labor market as illusionary as the valuations of these companies setting the trajectory of the U.S. economy. Market manipulation to enrich mainly a few that have the investment to play. Who massively increase their wealth and seem to pull their investment before everyone else gets the memo. The valuation of these manufactured, short-lived trends to the rest of the economy seems to becoming more and more negative on many levels.

One antidote for regional economies: avoid the Kool-Aid and inflated promises. End feeding these mega-efforts that syphon-off resources to “feed the beast” and neglect needed regional investments. Let Wall Street find their own ways to pay to play their speculative games to a smaller and smaller audience. Let Wall Street be “the casino down the road” for those who can afford play with their own money. Instead, turn all resources toward developing and maintaining a diversified local economies of small and medium-size businesses. More money stays local, as do job opportunities. Nurturing several small businesses, some of which can become big, may take longer than jumping on a mega or hyper-scaled project. But small businesses, if given a fair chance, won’t fold up their tent the minute technology takes a left turn. They are flying lower to the ground, with less distance to fall and the only direction left is up.

We need a wise, long-term industrial policy with achievable short-term goals. It needs to be based on a strategy that impacts the broadest constituency in a positive, increasingly progressive (i.e. as in moving forward toward a goal) way. It needs a Congress with a sole intent of shepherding the effort; enacting legislation that bolsters trade internally and externally, that is insulated from special interests flushed with cash, and works to lead the states who all see an interest in supporting the movement for their citizens.

Rebuild a culture of hope and opportunity for all again. Protect local and regional economies from the next, inevitable, economic downturn. By all means, modernize education and workforce development, but for the long-term with forward-looking data that reveres what has worked in the past, not these short-term, meaningless gyrations. This will make education and workforce development planning and implementation more certain and beneficial, not to mention economical and efficient.

Think of how many manufactured trends have come and gone. Then think about the carnage inflicted on local and regional economies. Then connect these swings to the decline in our societies, lost sense of community and hope for the future. How many times do we have to repeat these cataclysms before we rethink our plan to preempt them?

Frank Gibson is President of the North-Central Ohio Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership and can be reached through its website. NCOEBWTP partners with Proactive Technologies, Inc. to bring Ohio employers their structured on-the-job training system approach to maximizing worker capacity and ROI – built to the employer’s job requirements and business strategy. Perfect for apprenticeships, whether registered or not. To see how it might work at your firm, your family of facilities or your region,  contact a Proactive Technologies representative today to schedule a videoconference briefing for you and your colleagues. This can be followed up with an onsite presentation.