2012 SHEEO Higher Education Policy Conference
Working with business leaders and responding to changing
workforce needs
Nicole Smith
August 2012
Universal Challenges
•
Recessions accelerate process of skills-biased technological change.
•
Jobs that remain, require more and more postsecondary education and training.
•
Fastest growing industries are the ones that use postsecondary education most
intensely
•
The United States has been underproducing college-educated workers for
decades (Goldin/Katz).
•
The undersupply of postsecondary-educated workers has contributed to
inefficiency, inequity and mismatch
•
If we continue to underproduce college-educated workers, the large and growing
gap between the earnings of Americans of different educational attainment will
grow even wider.
Skills biased technical change is the engine that favors services
SOURCE: The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce analysis of Census and
O*NET data
The Economic Value of College Education has
increased over the past 40 years.
Wage growth by education level
for men
Source: Center on Education and the Workforce Analysis
Wage growth by education level
for women
We know that employment is related to education
Post recession 2007:
The growth has been in college level jobs
The man-cession has an education dimension
About 65 percent $772 billion on education and training is spent outside of
the formal postsecondary education system. (in billions of dollars)
Characteristic of Mismatch
 Knowledge, skills, abilities that for all intents should have been learned in
the education system remain wanting. Even soft skills such as
communication skills, networking, general people skills have grown in
importance but remain insufficient.
 5.6 million people in the US have been unemployed for six months or more.
 43% of all unemployed and just over 4 percent of the entire labor force.
 Disproportionately minority
 More likely to be male,
 Significantly more likely to have high school as the highest level of education
attained.
Skills matching depends upon both on non-cognitive
and cognitive competencies
Physical and mechanical skills are on the decline
Cognitive skills are on the rise
Taxonomy of Tasks
Task
Type
Task
Description
Example
Occupations
Potential Impact
of
Computerization
Routine
‘Middle Skill’
• ‘Rules-based’
• Repetitive
• Procedural
• Bookkeepers
• Assembly line
workers
• Direct Substitution
Non-Routine
Cognitive
(‘Abstract’)
‘High Skill’
• Abstract
problem-solving
• Mental flexibility
• Scientists
• Attorneys
• Managers
• Doctors
• Strong
Complementarity
• Truck drivers
• Security guards
• Waiters
• Maids/Janitors
• Limited
Complementarity
or Substitution
Non-Routine • Environmental
Manual Tasks Adaptability
• Interpersonal
(‘Manual’)
Adaptability
‘Low Skill’
Our Responsibility
Impact Those “At Risk”:
 First generation college attendees
 Strengthen high school to college pipeline
 Improve graduation rates
 Reduce need for remediation
 Improve workforce preparedness
 Leverage resources between public and private sectors
to support educational excellence