Workforce education and training builds momentum in Vermont

Vermont Business Magazine, Aug 01, 2000 by Clarke, Robert G

While wages in Vermont remain well below the national average, higher-paying jobs often go unfilled due to the lack of a skilled workforce. Employers are forced to look outside of Vermont to fill positions in manufacturing, technology, health care, and construction. Workforce education and training is a necessity if Vermont is to have skilled employees and attract higher paying jobs to our state.

Many Vermonters, and Americans in general, are arriving at the workplace unprepared for today's jobs. The American Management Association found that 36 percent of job applicants have trouble reading or doing basic math. One in four adults lacks the basic skills to write a letter to their credit company about a mistake on their bill.

Closer to home, Vermont manufacturers have found when they were recruiting manufacturing technicians that potential employees have manufacturing experience, but lack the educational background necessary for technical positions. The emerging high-tech industry is demanding more and more skilled workers while too few Americans possess the skills to fill many of the available jobs.

There are currently 346,000 information technology jobs available nationally - that's one vacancy for every 10 employees. And these jobs pay well. In 1996 the annual wage of a high-tech worker was $49,586, as compared to $28,600 for a private-sector, non-hightech worker. With average wages in Vermont at 84 percent of the national average, Vermont needs to attract, and fill, these high paying, high-tech jobs.

Up to now, we have relied on employers to fund this workforce education and training, and it is a considerable investment. On a national level, the figures are staggering. In just one year, the private sector and federal employers are estimated to have spent a combined $55.3 billion - or $300 per employee - on all training costs. Training expenditures nationwide have grown by 18 percent in the past decade.

How do we address this need for workforce education and training in Vermont? We must establish a statewide system for post-secondary vocational education. Currently, a handful of higher education institutions are trying to meet the growing needs of the state's business and industry.

Vermont Technical College, for example, manages all education and training programs at Husky Injection Molding Systems in Milton. The manufacturing

technician training program VTC put into place trains at least 70 percent of Husky's employees and fills education gaps in areas such as blueprint reading and technical math.

The University of Vermont/Vermont State Colleges Consortium is the training and education department for IBM, Vermont's largest private employer. Although IBM hires at all levels, from PhDs to manufacturing operators, the hardest jobs to fill are those of technicians with two-year technical degrees.

To fill the gap, IBM has formed this educational partnership and developed programs to train technicians. Other organizations have designed similar degree-specific programs, including Bell Atlantic, BF Goodrich and New England Electric Wire Corporation.

For smaller firms, Vermont's Small Business Development Center is out in the business community, not in the classroom, helping businesses address the need for technological training. Working in partnership with Vermont Technical College, the SBDC delivers entrepreneurial education programs, provides counseling seminars and training in e-commerce.

These programs do an admirable job of addressing the education and training needs of specific employers and incumbent employees. However, to keep Vermonters employed in productive jobs and to keep and attract businesses to our state, Vermont needs a statewide, postsecondary vocational education system that will meet the needs of both traditional-age students and adult students seeking to retrain. Vermont needs a system that will bring vocational education and training to the communi i s and make it readily available to all Vermonters.

The Vermont higher education community is now working with the state's business community to bring this training to comunities statewide. This includes a plan for four to six workforce development centers strategically placed in communities throughout the state. We will break ground for the first of these, The River Valley Education Center in Springfield, this summer. The next several years will bring exciting developments and greater opportunities for Vermonters. And the timing is crucial.

We must make education and training our business, for the good of Vermont.