Training workers for tomorrow: business, labor, and government must work together to plug the skills gap and keep America competitive - includes list of workplace training publications, seminars and organization - Cover Story

Nation's Business, March, 1993 by Joan C. Szabo

A lawyer and former public-policy lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Reich says a policy that will benefit all Americans is for the federal government to invest in the two assets that won't leave the country. One is "human capital," such as education and job training, and the other is physical infrastructure.

Reich sees education and worker training as key to raising U.S. productivity, economic growth, and living standards. "Unskilled and untrained Americans are losing out. If not competing with low-wage workers abroad, they increasingly are competing with new technologies here at home, which are rapidly replacing routine work of all kinds." Job training can help rescue those who are losing out, he says.

In addition to the new administration's emphasis on worker training, the focus on American jobs of the future has been underscored by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Congress will consider for approval this year. According to a recent study by the International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency, the pact is expected to result in a short-term loss of U.S. jobs but a long-term gain in employment.

Clinton expects to push for a side agreement for retraining workers who lose their jobs because of the trade agreement.

There is also widespread recognition that post-Cold War reductions in defense spending will mean that many defense workers will have to be retrained. Others who will need training include the hard-core unemployed and the millions who are employed but must continually improve their skills.

As these factors converge and awareness of the skills gap increases, some elements of society are increasing their efforts to address the problem. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, is moving on three fronts with programs to improve the education system, improve worker-training programs, and help companies adopt quality-management techniques.

In 1990, the business federation sensed the need for concerted action to generate education reform at the local level and established the Center for Workforce Preparation and Quality Education as an affiliate. The center moved immediately to equip local business leaders with the tools to spark education reform.

Among the center's recent accomplishments is a groundbreaking study that analyzed how education dollars are spent by the nation's schools. Financed through a grant from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc., the study devised a school-finance model that enables communities to track every dollar within their school systems, not just in the central office but also in every classroom.

The study's model allows communities to determine inequalities in spending within individual school districts.

The U.S. Chamber also has been on the cutting edge of efforts to promote lifelong learning and retraining. Last year the organization established its Quality Learning Services Division to provide television satellite seminars on quality management.