Workforce Development - A Good Investment?

Its All About the Talent

FMI Corp's,  Ron Magnus, who heads their Talent Development division dropped me an email recently, alerting me to a new Construction Industry report on Talent Development that FMI has just published.

By 2008, it's an accepted fact that a wealth of skills and experience will disappear from the job market as the first members of the Baby Boom generation reach average retirement age. Talent development will become a critical strategic objective and differentiator for any competitive organization.

Magnus reaffirms that in order to remain successful in the knowledge-based, global economy building and construction firms must continually invest in their human capital. 

1. This is a great report, well worth your time, in a easy to read format. Click here Download USTReport2007.pdf for a copy. 

 

Are we shooting ourselves in the foot?

    In a survey of 800 manufacturers conducted by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) last year, more than 80 percent said they were experiencing a shortage of skilled workers. In October, manufacturers surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said "finding qualified workers" was their biggest business problem.
    The shortage of skilled workers is the result of a number of factors. One of the biggest is that manufacturing in the nation is becoming more high-tech and skill-based as the more repetitive, less-skilled work is moving abroad. Such jobs require greater expertise.
    Plus, baby boomers with years of experience are retiring. And younger people are bypassing factory jobs, viewing them as repetitive, dirty and without much opportunity, a view that hasn't been helped by all the factory closings and headlines about manufacturing jobs moving to China.
   Are we "shooting ourselves in the foot", so to speak by continuing to harp on the loss of jobs in manufacturing and impact of offshoring, to the extent that it is discouraging younger people from considering these fields as viable career choices?

Shortage of highly skilled workers with technical backgrounds

Manufacturers say they face a shortage of highly skilled workers in a 21st century factory,

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