rttp://ww.Busin6ssToday.com/oditors/editors.

htm Draams ol high pertomanc Friday, March 20, 1991

l,

Contributing Editors
Dreams of high performance
Friday, March 20, 1998
By John O. Harney

The script says that the Massachusetts economy is humming along, that cutting-edge companies
of the 21st century no longer seek cheap labor but high-wage, high-skill, high-performance
workers - that these are good times.

But a nagging paradox persists. All over the Bay State are businesses that can't find good
workers and workers who can't find good jobs.

Why the mismatch?

For starters, the high-perfornance scenario envisions a generation ofbrainy "knowledge"

workers empowered by their bosses to use judgment, make decisions and be creative, instead
of simply following instructions and performing tasks by rote. At the bare minimum then,
workers must be able to read, write and compute. They should be able to think critically and
work in teams.

But those relatively low standards are high enough to exclude most of the 877 ,000
Massachusetts adults deemed to be functionally illiterate, meaning they can't read at the
fifth-grade level.

Most of the folks sent packing when retail chains like lrchmere and Woolworth's shut down
are also outside the high-performance arena. Same goes for thousands ofpeople pushed from
welfare to work with the perverse incentive to take a lousy job now rather than enroll in an
education progrirm that could lead to a betterjob later.

Another problem with the high-performance scenario is that too many employers view worker
training not as an investment, but as a cost. In good or bad economic times, they'd prefer to lay
off one class of "throwaway" workers and hire a new class of more skilled replacements, rather
than invest in training their current employees.

Many of the issues pertaining to the Bay State's dysfunctional labor market were powerfully
illuminated at a forum held earlier this month by the Massachusetts Institute for a New
Commonwealth (MassINC) and Mellon Trust.

MassINC, a Boston-based policy institute, had earlier issued a report entitled "Closing the Gap:
Raising Skills to Raise Wages," which recommended that Massachusetts invest $160 million a
year to provide the range of adult basic education, vocational training, worker training and
community college programs needed to prepare adults for the knowledge economy.

U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II used the occasion of the forum to call for a "Civilian G.I.
Bill," whereby businesses would help pay for a student's college education, and in exchange,
the student would agree to take a job with the business for some specified period upon
graduation.

Reinforcing a key hnding from "Closing the Gap," Kennedy further noted that two years of
college education raises earnings by 26 percent for men and 45 percent for women. Yet
Massachusetts, for all its claims of educational preeminence, is a laggard when it comes to
community college enrollment. Indeed, thundered Kennedy, some of the state's high-tech rivals
such as Califomia enroll nearly three times as many students per-capita in community colleges
as Massachusetts does.

Kennedy concluded that $160 million is a fair price for beefed-up skills - much less, in fact,
than some Massachusetts politicians want to give away in tax cuts.

Gloria Cordes Larson, co-chair of the Mass. Jobs Council and former secretary of economic
affairs in the Weld administration, observed that the price tag pales in comparison to the $1
billion being spent to retool Logan Intemational Airport. Besides, she added, closing the skills
gap is not just an economic issue - it's a fairness issue, too.

Page: I
 ltip://ww Businosstoday.com/editors/editors.htm Drsams ol high porlorman Friday' March 20' 199t

Economist Edward Moscovitch, who authored "Closing the Gap," noted that federal and state
student aid programs are geared to traditional college-age students and don't offer much benefit
to adult worters.

After listening to all the taik of labor supply and demand. N{arsa.husetts state Rep. Daniel E.
Bosley tD-North Adams) rlamed: We need adult basic education so kids can be read to at
I

night by their parents."

Joan Wallace-Benlamin of the Urban League of Eastem Massachusetts noted that

communitl'-based-organizations staffed by people from the communities they serve are essential
in reaching parents and children from inner-city neighborhoods. *here the possibility of
attending a communit-v college may seem as remote as enrolling at Han'ard.

Gary Kaplan of Jobs for Youth-Boston added that many people "need.a job now, not in two
years or iour 1,'ears." For them, community-based organizations provide crucial 15-week
cou.r"s leadiig to enrry-level jobs and further education. "It takes three months to change them
from pubtic liabilities to public assets," sard Kaplan.

Finally, Roberr J. Hay,nes ol the AFL-CIO of Massachusetts popped the $22 million questron,
Why. asked Haynes. should a bank CEO make $22 million a 1:ear while a bank janitor makes
$5.25 an hour? iSo that's \\'here the training budget wentl) Beneath the rustle of squirming
gray flannel could be heard a hushed "amen" or two from those pard (poorly no doubt) to keep
the coffee flo*ing,
To be sure, no one's giring up his salary for a trained workforce. And it will be hard to
convince people tn these parts that the local community college and groups like the Urban
Irague can be as ,, ital to the economy as Harvard or Welleslel'.

But MassINC has skrllfully advanced the discussion. And creeping economic anxiety should
help keep it alir,e. After a1l. the curent expansion in Massachusens has now run longer than the
"Massachusetts Miracle" of the 1980s, which collapsed under the pressure of, among other
things, a tight labor market.

In places like Danvers and Fitchburg, where venerable employers have been chuming out pink
slips, there is a sense of dela vu and a warning: the economy in this corner of the United States
ris-es or falls on the commitment to build and support a skilled u'orkforce. If we don't attend to
that, the new and improved Logan Airport may witness a 1ot more departures than arrivals.

John O. Hamey is the executive editor of Connection: New England's Journal of Higher
Education and Economrc Development. Connection is the quarterly .lournal of the Ncrv England
Rrxrrd of Higher Eclucatirrn.

'l'odays Trro Storrcs i Tech I oday Asia Toda-r' In Vox ] Todtrv s Colurnn r (onirib,ulin!'
I I-rl)nL [.,a!it i
l:dr-cirriPeonle lCaleldariGLLestbooklStaff Chatapo]loozaiBT Forums IAIN'I IBT L.inks l;\P
Breaking Nervs lHoovers lBusinessWire Siock Ouote-< I Fund Cit)'iArchires Jobfind.ctrm l

Page:2