New legislation that seeks to address the serious shortage of skilled workers that hampers U.S. economic growth was introduced in Congress this week, and the bills include a welcome endorsement of national and portable skills certification.

Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) are sponsoring S. 665, the Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organized Regional Success Act, or SECTORS Act. The House version is H.R. 1240, introduced by Reps. David Loebsack (D-IA) and Todd Russell Platts (R-PA).

The bill provides grants to partnerships among institutions of industry, higher education, organized labor, and workforce boards to develop regional plans to strengthen local industries, especially those with high growth potential. These plans would support coordinated workforce training programs meant to to address shortages of skilled workers in those industries.

The bill also supports industry recognized, nationally portable certifications, such as the NAM-Endorsed Manufacturing Skills Certification system, now being put into place in community colleges across 31 states.

While the National Association of Manufacturers has some concerns about specific provisions of this legislation, we generally support the idea of promoting industry sectors and are very pleased with the emphasis on the use of industry portable, nationally recognized certifications. Certification systems give new and transitioning workers a way to gain and demonstrate skills that are marketable in the workplace. Certification also gives employers confidence that they are hiring people who have the skills necessary for advanced manufacturing.

The SECTORS Act represents a good, bipartisan efforts to tackle one of the major issues affecting manufacturers, the shortage of skilled workers. The NAM looks forward to working with legislation’s sponsors to improve the bill to ensure the United States has the best prepared and most competitive workforce in the world.

News releases…

• “Sens. Brown, Snowe Introduce Bill to Spur Clusters-Based Job Growth“
• “Platts Pushes Legislation to Help Job Creators Find Skilled Workers“

Drew Greenblatt, president of Marlin Steel Wire Products and an NAM board member, talked about the economy, competitiveness, and the need for skilled employees in a segment Friday on the PBS Show, Nightly Business Report. From the transcript:

DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: After what you just heard, you are going to find this hard to believe. There are employers out there who say they are having trouble finding good people to hire even in this economy. Employers like Drew Greenblatt at Marlin Steel Wire. How can you have high unemployment and you got good jobs going unfilled?

DREW GREENBLATT, PRESIDENT, MARLIN STEEL WIRE: We have a mismatch. We have people out there that are skilled and trained, let`s say, to work in a retail showroom or to work in a MacDonalds or a restaurant. They are not necessarily trained to be able to know what a radius is or to know how to read a tape measure or to know how to read a blueprint or know how to change a bearing, or a die set in a robot.

GERSH: You can see Marlin Steel Wire`s challenge right here — 51 minutes. That`s how much longer this machine will run before it shuts down and has to be set up again. Now the operator who set up this machine has already gone home for the night. His shift is over. If they could find somebody else to come in and set up this machine, it could run all night long. Greenblatt says he is even having some trouble finding a bookkeeper. After getting more than 250 resumes, he found just four candidates who know manufacturing and job costing. One toured the floor while we visited. And, yes, Greenblatt is offering more money — 20 percent more — to find the right person.

GREENBLATT: So we thought it was going to be really easy to fill this position. So we`re actually surprised about how much of a challenge it`s been for us.

Also discussing workplace skills in the segment was Jerry Jasinowski, former president of the National Association of Manufacturers and current member of the Manufacturing Institute’s board of trustees.

Video of the program is here, and kudos to PBS and the Nightly Business Report for its speedy transcriptions.

In the world of smaller daily newspapers, Mondays and Saturdays always competed to produce the thinnest and dullest editions. Saturdays at least had the advantage of high school sports coverage to attract readers. Mondays offered a local business columnist or community round-up, a feature story to anchor the front page, and maybe dross spun into breaking-news gold by the weekend reporter.

The Wall Street Journal clearly runs on a different schedule, in a different news universe all together. The relatively new Saturday edition is more featurish than the other days, true, but it still has so much of interest, including long interviews like Kimberly Strassel’s talk with Ken Feinberg, the federal BP claims adminstrator, or, “Mr. Fairness.”

And Mondays, well, Mondays….!

All these stories and commentaries today are a good read.

Mark Whitehouse, “Some Firms Struggle to Hire Despite High Unemployment, “With a 9.5% jobless rate and some 15 million Americans looking for work, many employers are inundated with applicants. But a surprising number say they are getting an underwhelming response, and many are having trouble filling open positions.”

Michael P. Fleischer, “Why I’m Not Hiring,” a commentary from the president of Bogen Communications in Ramsey, N.J.: “A life in business is filled with uncertainties, but I can be quite sure that every time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government’s message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.” (continue reading…)

Frank Vargo, the National Association of Manufacturers’ vice president for international economic affairs, appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal program this morning, a very good and serious segment. You can watch it on the web here. Most of the discussion involved trade, but at one point the interviewer, Greta Brawner, read these paragraphs from today’s Wall Street Journal, “Some Firms Struggle to Hire Despite High Unemployment“:

Manufacturers of high-precision products such as automobile and aircraft parts are in a particularly tough spot. Global competition keeps them from raising wages much. But they need workers with the combination of math skills, intuition and stamina required to operate the computer-controlled metalworking machines that now dominate the factory floor.

At Mechanical Devices, which supplies parts for earthmovers and other heavy equipment to manufacturers such as Caterpillar Inc., part owner Mark Sperry says he has been looking for $13-an-hour machinists since early this year. The lack of workers is “the key limitation to the growth of our business and to meeting our customers’ expectations,” says Mr. Sperry. He estimates the company could immediately boost sales by as much as 20% if it could find the 40 workers it needs.

Vargo reacted:

This is a very serious problem. When we talk to our companies, this is – especially for our smaller companies – this is the most serious problem they face. They just cannot find the skilled workers. The existing workforces are getting older and older, and as they retire, the companies are having a great deal of difficulty in finding the younger workers with the skills. (continue reading…)

From The Associated Press, “Labor agency: La. needs more 2-year college grads“:

BATON ROUGE, La. –Suggestions from a Jindal administration official Monday that Louisiana has a “surplus” of four-year college degrees rankled members of a commission looking at ways to overhaul the state’s public college systems.

Curt Eysink, executive director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, the state’s labor department, told the commission that Louisiana needs more students enrolled in — and graduating from — vocational training and community college programs.

Eysink said there are more graduates with four-year college degrees than the state can employ in their fields while the state has a shortage of workers needed for skilled labor jobs. He presented occupational forecasting data that showed the top growth jobs projected for the state included ticket-takers, home health aides, retail salespersons and nurses.

Not sure how that list of jobs in the last sentence was selected. You probably don’t need a two-year degree to be a ticket-taker.

But Eysink and the commission have identified real workforce trends that are affecting students and manufacturers nationwide. Skilled jobs, the kind you find more and more in high-tech manufacturing, often do not require a four-year degree. Two years degrees, vocational certification and apprenticeships can serve students with training that not only leads them into well-compensated careers but also aligns with their individual skills and interests.

In the story, Arits Terrell, chairman of the Louisiana Board of Regents asks, “Can you ever have too many four-year degrees?”

Yes! Of course! In fact, AEI scholar Charles Murray wrote a valuable book on the issue, “Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality.” In a 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “What’s Wrong With Vocational School?,” Murray anticipated Chairman Terrell’s argument:

Large numbers of those who are intellectually qualified for college also do not yearn for four years of college-level courses. They go to college because their parents are paying for it and college is what children of their social class are supposed to do after they finish high school. They may have the ability to understand the material in Economics 1 but they do not want to. They, too, need to learn to make a living–and would do better in vocational training.

Combine those who are unqualified with those who are qualified but not interested, and some large proportion of students on today’s college campuses–probably a majority of them–are looking for something that the four-year college was not designed to provide.

Terrell’s comments could well reflect a common point of view about higher education. To many state officials and people who earn their paychecks from a university system, students equal income. But yes, you can have too many four-year degrees, especially when the degrees serve neither the student nor the demands of the economy.

See also:

• Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission homepage.
• Kansas City Star, “Manufacturing summit looks at shortage of skilled workers.”
• Gov. Jindal’s Aug. 11 remarks to the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission.