Governor Snyder's Take on the Economic Summit (Update: “The greatest asset we have in our state is our talent,” Snyder told his summit. “We don’t do a good job of talent management.”)

Snyder: State loaded with talent

Connecting to career is focus of summit

By John Gallagher Free Press Business Writer

   Gov. Rick Snyder opened his economic summit in Detroit Monday by playing matchmaker between talented young people looking for jobs and the companies that might hire them.

   With Snyder beaming like a proud papa, 10 college students from various parts of the state gave their “elevator pitch” to several hundred business and civic leaders at Cobo Center to open Snyder’s two-day economic summit.

   Barry Winslow, a senior at Northern Michigan University, is looking for work in broadcasting and multimedia journalism. “I want to stay here,” he told the summit. “It comes down to family. … This is home to me, so I want to stay and find work here.”

   Laurie Asava, a Michigan State business major, rejected the notion that young Michigan graduates like herself need to go to cities like Chicago to start a life.

   “Chicago is not Michigan,” she said. “It’s not my place."

   And Scott Temple, a Wayne State graduate studying science at Eastern Michigan, vowed to be part of his hometown of Detroit’s rebirth.

   “I’m a native Detroiter,” he said. “I’m watching Detroit reinvent itself while I’m reinventing myself. It’s my home. I’m not going anywhere.”

   The student presentations, though brief, provided an emotional start to the two-day conference.

   “That struck me in my heart,” Snyder said of the presentations. “That was emotional. It was just fabulous. I was proud to say I’m a Michigander when you listen to those young people get up and talk about their stories and what they’ve accomplished and how they want to stay in the state.”

   The goal of the two-day summit is to clarify the link between available talent and available jobs. That issue is acute in a state that has seen its unemployment rate stuck at around 9% for the past year.

   “The greatest asset we have in our state is our talent,” Snyder told his summit. “We don’t do a good job of talent management.”

   Later, in an interview with the Free Press, the governor elaborated on that theme.

   “I think it’s a national issue. It’s not just a Michigan issue,” Snyder said. Companies may know what they need in terms of skills and the number of new people. But, Snyder said, “There’s no good system to aggregate that demand, to say in the big picture if we took all our employers together this is what they need now, this what they believe they need over the next few years. So there’s a disconnect there.”

   Part of the answer is for schools to become better at helping students to think about and find their eventual careers.

   “We have some of the world’s best universities and community colleges,” he said, adding, “It’s not really fulfilling the full function, which I view could be more proactive to help (students) connect to that career.”

   Snyder will continue the dialogue at today’s concluding sessions and take it up again in April at a similar summit on education issues.

   One of the hot topics at Snyder’s two-day economic summit at Cobo Center in Detroit is the so-called skills gap — the notion that companies have job openings but cannot find potential employees with the right skills.

   Some economists say the gap is a myth, pointing to data that many companies are sitting on unprecedented levels of cash unwilling to hire. Or they are being too picky in the kinds of people they’re willing to hire.

   Opinion at the summit seemed mixed.

   John Rakolta, CEO of the Detroit-based contracting firm Walbridge, said a “massive skills gap” exists worldwide and is increasingly posing a problem as the economy expands.

   Paul Traub, a business economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Detroit branch, addressed the summit’s morning session and pointed to data that could be read either way.

   Wage rates are not rising as fast as inflation and productivity continues to expand, two data points that seem to point to a lack of a skills gap. If a gap existed and companies couldn’t find the right people, wages would be bid up and productivity gains would be constrained.

   But other data seem to point to something new happening that could reflect a skills mismatch, he said.

   By any measure, Traub said, it still pays to get as much education as possible, despite the high cost of college today. Traub presented data showing that college pays for itself through better lifelong employment prospects.“Even with the high cost of education, it pays for itself going forward,” Traub told the summit. “Please don’t drop out of school.”

   About 700 people registered for the two-day summit, which concludes today. Registration is closed.