Crain’s on talent
Crain’s Detroit Business featured talent in their Mackinac Conference edition. Four articles. All worth checking out! They highlight the importance, challenges and opportunities of preparing, retaining and attracting talent. An essential ingredient for future Michigan growth.
Crain’s convened a roundtable on the topic that I was priviledged to participate in. The other participants were:
- David Carroll, vice president of miscellaneous stuff, Quicken Loans, Detroit.
- Amy Cell, senior vice president, talent enhancement, Michigan Economic Development Corp.
- Giulio Desando, manager, talent acquisition, North America, Tata Technologies, Novi.
- Ken Harris, president and CEO, Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce, Detroit, with chapters across Michigan.
- Lisa Katz, executive director, Workforce Intelligence Network, Detroit.
- Julie Norris, director of attorney development and recruitment, Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn.
- Kevin Stotts, president, Talent 2025, Grand Rapids.
- Linzie Venegas, business unit manager, Ideal Shield; chief marketing officer, Ideal Group, Detroit.
Great group, insightful conversation. The summary of that conversation can be found in two articles: Talent: How to grow it and keep it. And Topics on the edges of the roundtable. The basic data on the demand for workers by education attainment can be found in their article Higher ed, higher return.
In addition to the roundtable aticles above, Crain’s also featured an insightful article by Nathan Skid on the current job market for Millennials in metro Detroit entitled “Jobs for a generation: Market opening up for millennials; having technical skills helps“
Originally Published: May 30, 2013 6:00 AM Modified: June 02, 2013 9:46 AM
Talent: How to find it, grow it and keep it
NATHAN SKID/CDB
Related links
In early May, Crain's and Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP convened a panel of executives for a discussion about how metro Detroit and Michigan can develop and retain talent. The following is an edited transcript. In some cases, comments have been reordered to preserve the conversational thread.
David Carroll, Quicken Loans: "I think it’s safe to say that technology is part of the future, ... but it is tricky because you could teach a certain type of programming language today that’s the hot language, and then five years from now it may be obsolete."
The panel was moderated by Executive Editor Cindy Goodaker.
Participants:
• David Carroll, vice president of miscellaneous stuff,Quicken Loans, Detroit.
• Amy Cell, senior vice president, talent enhancement,Michigan Economic Development Corp.
• Giulio Desando, manager, talent acquisition, North America, Tata Technologies, Novi.
• Lou Glazer, president, Michigan Future Inc., Ann Arbor. Michigan Future's mission is to be a source of new ideas about how Michigan can succeed in a knowledge-driven economy.
• Ken Harris, president and CEO, Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce, Detroit, with chapters across Michigan.
• Lisa Katz, executive director, Workforce Intelligence Network, Detroit. WIN is a coalition of local community colleges, MichiganWorks agencies and economic development agencies working with local employers to identify and respond to employment needs.
• Julie Norris, director of attorney development and recruitment, Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn.
• Kevin Stotts, president, Talent 2025, Grand Rapids. Talent 2025's goal is for West Michigan to be globally recognized as a top 20 region in the U.S. for entrepreneurship and talent.
• Linzie Venegas, business unit manager, Ideal Shield; chief marketing officer, Ideal Group, Detroit.
Participants:
• David Carroll, vice president of miscellaneous stuff,Quicken Loans, Detroit.
• Amy Cell, senior vice president, talent enhancement,Michigan Economic Development Corp.
• Giulio Desando, manager, talent acquisition, North America, Tata Technologies, Novi.
• Lou Glazer, president, Michigan Future Inc., Ann Arbor. Michigan Future's mission is to be a source of new ideas about how Michigan can succeed in a knowledge-driven economy.
• Ken Harris, president and CEO, Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce, Detroit, with chapters across Michigan.
• Lisa Katz, executive director, Workforce Intelligence Network, Detroit. WIN is a coalition of local community colleges, MichiganWorks agencies and economic development agencies working with local employers to identify and respond to employment needs.
• Julie Norris, director of attorney development and recruitment, Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn.
• Kevin Stotts, president, Talent 2025, Grand Rapids. Talent 2025's goal is for West Michigan to be globally recognized as a top 20 region in the U.S. for entrepreneurship and talent.
• Linzie Venegas, business unit manager, Ideal Shield; chief marketing officer, Ideal Group, Detroit.
Cindy Goodaker, Crain's: What are some of the biggest challenges you see in developing and retaining talent?
Lisa Katz, Workforce Intelligence Network: Obviously, there are a lot of challenges, but one of the biggest is helping people understand where job growth is occurring and understanding how we get individuals ready for that growth.
Right now, we have a lot of people who are ready and willing to work but they don't necessarily have the right skills or the right experience, and in the short term that is putting a damper on growth opportunities for our region. In the long run, it's making it difficult to show young people where the long-term career prospects are, so they're not getting the education or training that they need.
Lisa Katz, Workforce Intelligence Network: Obviously, there are a lot of challenges, but one of the biggest is helping people understand where job growth is occurring and understanding how we get individuals ready for that growth.
Right now, we have a lot of people who are ready and willing to work but they don't necessarily have the right skills or the right experience, and in the short term that is putting a damper on growth opportunities for our region. In the long run, it's making it difficult to show young people where the long-term career prospects are, so they're not getting the education or training that they need.
Goodaker: Let's talk a little about planning for long-term demand.
After 2008 when a lot of people lost their jobs, there was an emphasis on retraining, and one of the areas where it was thought there would be a lot of demand was health care. People retrained for health care jobs and then the industry stopped hiring.
So how do you balance the need for people trained to do particular things as opposed to having people ready to learn a variety of things?
David Carroll, Quicken: I think it's safe to say that technology is part of the future and always will be. That's not something that's going to come and go, but it is tricky because you could teach a certain type of programming language today that's the hot language, and then five years from now it may be obsolete.
I think it's important, especially in K-12 and college to focus more broadly on some core technology skills and also creative thinking.
Kevin Stotts, Talent 2025: To add to what David said, we've been polling our HR leaders in West Michigan, and what they're looking for are creative thinkers, people who are adaptable in the workplace, who are motivated, a lot of the softer skills.
After 2008 when a lot of people lost their jobs, there was an emphasis on retraining, and one of the areas where it was thought there would be a lot of demand was health care. People retrained for health care jobs and then the industry stopped hiring.
So how do you balance the need for people trained to do particular things as opposed to having people ready to learn a variety of things?
David Carroll, Quicken: I think it's safe to say that technology is part of the future and always will be. That's not something that's going to come and go, but it is tricky because you could teach a certain type of programming language today that's the hot language, and then five years from now it may be obsolete.
I think it's important, especially in K-12 and college to focus more broadly on some core technology skills and also creative thinking.
Kevin Stotts, Talent 2025: To add to what David said, we've been polling our HR leaders in West Michigan, and what they're looking for are creative thinkers, people who are adaptable in the workplace, who are motivated, a lot of the softer skills.
Lou Glazer, Michigan Future: "The one thing we know is that machines are going to continue to get smarter and do more of the work that humans used to do, but we don’t know how they’re going to get smarter."
Lou Glazer, Michigan Future: Mike Schmidt, who is at the Ford Motor Co. Fund (director, education and community development), just told me he'd been at a presentation that Gene Sperling did. Gene Sperling is one of Obama's economic advisers but also had a similar position with Clinton. Sperling said that when he was with the Clinton administration, one of the hot jobs they were pushing people toward was travel agents, because it was one of the fastest-growing occupations.
Obviously, this was pre-Internet, so Sperling was telling this story to say that occupational projections are tenuous at best. If you look at the history, it's really hard to figure this stuff out.
The one thing we know is that machines are going to continue to get smarter and do more of the work that humans used to do, but we don't know how they're going to get smarter, so it really means the broader skills that Kevin and David were talking about.
If you don't have those skills, if you have job-specific skills, the half life's getting shorter and shorter on your ability to make money on those job-specific skills.
Giulio Desando, Tata Technologies: I would tend to agree, and I think one of the things we need to do is change the perception of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Many times when you talk to a young person in high school and you tell them, "You should look at going into engineering and look at the automotive industry," they say, "Well, you know, I don't want to be stuck in a plant for the rest of my life." But if you look at electric vehicles, some of the autonomous vehicles that companies are starting to build, there's a lot of excitement in the technology.
Katz: We need to help people understand that the nature of work is changing as well. It's not just the technology with which we work, it's how we do work, and that means that we're changing careers repeatedly throughout our lives.
Sometimes we're going to be in a traditional comfortable work environment where we have all the benefits and all the comfort we want, well-paying and everything. Sometimes we're going to be in the un-job market where we might have to think about being a contract worker or we may think "I need to set up my own shop for a while."
There's no saying in what proportion a person will spend their lives in each one of those areas, but the likelihood is we're going to have more and more volatility about how we work.
Amy Cell, MEDC: I agree with everyone's points here, there are employers that need specific skills and they're willing to invest in training or there are training funds that are available. I think we've gotten better at connecting with employers who are willing to train and invest in a particular person in a particular skill set that they know they're going to need. So, while 20 years from now a person might be doing different things, there are opportunities for people to transition into jobs now that employers need.
Obviously, this was pre-Internet, so Sperling was telling this story to say that occupational projections are tenuous at best. If you look at the history, it's really hard to figure this stuff out.
The one thing we know is that machines are going to continue to get smarter and do more of the work that humans used to do, but we don't know how they're going to get smarter, so it really means the broader skills that Kevin and David were talking about.
If you don't have those skills, if you have job-specific skills, the half life's getting shorter and shorter on your ability to make money on those job-specific skills.
Giulio Desando, Tata Technologies: I would tend to agree, and I think one of the things we need to do is change the perception of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Many times when you talk to a young person in high school and you tell them, "You should look at going into engineering and look at the automotive industry," they say, "Well, you know, I don't want to be stuck in a plant for the rest of my life." But if you look at electric vehicles, some of the autonomous vehicles that companies are starting to build, there's a lot of excitement in the technology.
Katz: We need to help people understand that the nature of work is changing as well. It's not just the technology with which we work, it's how we do work, and that means that we're changing careers repeatedly throughout our lives.
Sometimes we're going to be in a traditional comfortable work environment where we have all the benefits and all the comfort we want, well-paying and everything. Sometimes we're going to be in the un-job market where we might have to think about being a contract worker or we may think "I need to set up my own shop for a while."
There's no saying in what proportion a person will spend their lives in each one of those areas, but the likelihood is we're going to have more and more volatility about how we work.
Amy Cell, MEDC: I agree with everyone's points here, there are employers that need specific skills and they're willing to invest in training or there are training funds that are available. I think we've gotten better at connecting with employers who are willing to train and invest in a particular person in a particular skill set that they know they're going to need. So, while 20 years from now a person might be doing different things, there are opportunities for people to transition into jobs now that employers need.
Preparing for the future
Goodaker: So how does an individual person prepare for that? What is the type of education people should get to best prepare themselves for the future?
Goodaker: So how does an individual person prepare for that? What is the type of education people should get to best prepare themselves for the future?
Julie Norris, Honigman: "We’ve just introduced a new system where there are partners in charge making sure young attorneys get a breadth and depth of experience and are not pigeonholed too soon in their career where they’re left with fewer options."
Julie Norris, Honigman: In the legal industry, there is mounting pressure on law schools to provide real hands-on experience, which is a real change in how legal education has been done for the last many decades, and some law schools are responding to that by introducing internships, clinics, things like that, which we appreciate and we value when we see it on a résumé.
Then once we actually hire people, we're very aware of providing our attorneys a broad skill set. We've just introduced a new system where there are partners in charge making sure young attorneys get a breadth and depth of experience and are not pigeonholed too soon in their career where they're left with fewer options.
Katz: I think employers do care about the educational background a person comes into a job with, but I think more often they want to focus on what has the person done, so I think the best advice I would give to anybody is have lots of experiences. If you want to work in a certain field, you should demonstrate interest and a passion in that field.
Carroll: We have about 7,600 people at our company, and I guarantee not one person got a degree in mortgage lending. Not one person as a little kid said, "I want to be in the mortgage business." So while I do think it's important to have some basic STEM curriculum in school, I would tell young people to major in what they want to major in, what they enjoy learning about, because they won't have time to do that when they're older.
But I think the key is to be flexible, and seek out companies where they can learn a lot. Once they get into a company and real world, people get a better sense of what they want to do, so it's important to hook up with a good company and be flexible.
Then once we actually hire people, we're very aware of providing our attorneys a broad skill set. We've just introduced a new system where there are partners in charge making sure young attorneys get a breadth and depth of experience and are not pigeonholed too soon in their career where they're left with fewer options.
Katz: I think employers do care about the educational background a person comes into a job with, but I think more often they want to focus on what has the person done, so I think the best advice I would give to anybody is have lots of experiences. If you want to work in a certain field, you should demonstrate interest and a passion in that field.
Carroll: We have about 7,600 people at our company, and I guarantee not one person got a degree in mortgage lending. Not one person as a little kid said, "I want to be in the mortgage business." So while I do think it's important to have some basic STEM curriculum in school, I would tell young people to major in what they want to major in, what they enjoy learning about, because they won't have time to do that when they're older.
But I think the key is to be flexible, and seek out companies where they can learn a lot. Once they get into a company and real world, people get a better sense of what they want to do, so it's important to hook up with a good company and be flexible.
Giulio Desando, Tata Technologies: "I think at the high-school level, it would be good to have some kind of co-op curriculum where students can explore different types of careers."
Linzie Venegas, Ideal Group: I think it's really important for young people that we hire that they have some type of experience or internship or freelance experience, but also that they have built a network of resources. You want to make sure these people you're going to hire are going to evolve. You can provide them opportunities, but they also need to help provide opportunities for themselves.
Desando: I think that having a co-op or an internship is important. When we hire engineers, that's the first thing we look for. What we find is they tend to be better rounded, more creative and the ramp-up time is shorter because they've already been in the industry.
I think at the high-school level, it would be good to have some kind of co-op curriculum where students can explore different types of careers.
Stotts: I'd say that should be extended down into the middle school level. In today's society, there's a movement from the generalist coming out of high school to more of a specialist. You have to have a higher technical knowledge even coming out of high school to move into an occupation.
There's a big opportunity for business to partner with educators, to be involved and to show those career pathways and career exploration from middle school on.
Venegas: We work with Detroit Cristo Rey High School because we have a lot of inner city students. A lot of their parents work many hours, come from a lot of single family homes, but to be able to integrate into a workforce everyday can mean that their role model has changed from a basketball star or a movie star to a marketing professional or an office person. They can look at somebody and say, "I can be just like that person," and have a house and a job.
Ken Harris, Michigan Black Chamber: We're focusing as a chamber of commerce on entrepreneurship. If you go into a classroom, you'll find out if you ask students whether they would rather have a career or profession or own their own business, I would say that the majority would say, "I want to own my own."
Desando: I think that having a co-op or an internship is important. When we hire engineers, that's the first thing we look for. What we find is they tend to be better rounded, more creative and the ramp-up time is shorter because they've already been in the industry.
I think at the high-school level, it would be good to have some kind of co-op curriculum where students can explore different types of careers.
Stotts: I'd say that should be extended down into the middle school level. In today's society, there's a movement from the generalist coming out of high school to more of a specialist. You have to have a higher technical knowledge even coming out of high school to move into an occupation.
There's a big opportunity for business to partner with educators, to be involved and to show those career pathways and career exploration from middle school on.
Venegas: We work with Detroit Cristo Rey High School because we have a lot of inner city students. A lot of their parents work many hours, come from a lot of single family homes, but to be able to integrate into a workforce everyday can mean that their role model has changed from a basketball star or a movie star to a marketing professional or an office person. They can look at somebody and say, "I can be just like that person," and have a house and a job.
Ken Harris, Michigan Black Chamber: We're focusing as a chamber of commerce on entrepreneurship. If you go into a classroom, you'll find out if you ask students whether they would rather have a career or profession or own their own business, I would say that the majority would say, "I want to own my own."
Ken Harris, Michigan Black Chamber: "If you ask students whether they would rather go into a career or profession or own their own business, I would say that the majority would say, 'I want to own my own.' So we think it’s important to help cultivate an innovative mindset."
So we think it's important to help cultivate an innovative mindset to where, even if you have a degree or career, you can still be entrepreneurship-minded. I think that is really critical in this day and time because innovation is really what's going to transform Michigan and the communities we reside in.
Katz: One thing I notice every time I have a conversation like this, we naturally start talking about young people and we don't necessarily talk about middle-aged people or people who are older.
Sometimes people are going through a career transition or they're retiring and they want to have a second career and they need to do that same type of career exploration.
Those individuals need to think about taking a class at a community college and being able to demonstrate that they want to learn new things. They have to do the same things as young people do to be able to compete in this job market.
Katz: One thing I notice every time I have a conversation like this, we naturally start talking about young people and we don't necessarily talk about middle-aged people or people who are older.
Sometimes people are going through a career transition or they're retiring and they want to have a second career and they need to do that same type of career exploration.
Those individuals need to think about taking a class at a community college and being able to demonstrate that they want to learn new things. They have to do the same things as young people do to be able to compete in this job market.
The education factor
Glazer: I think talent has become the headline for two different conversations. I think it's important to make a distinction between the two. One is skill shortages. It's occupations for which there seem to be more demand than supply. The second way is what we've been working on at Michigan Future for a while, the whole notion of how talent relates to economic growth. That's not really as much about meeting the current needs of employers, it's about how talent has turned out to be the asset that matters most in growing Michigan, growing economies and particularly growing high-wage economies.
The only folks who have job growth since the recession started are folks with four-year degrees or more, period.
The story that we're told over and over and over again is that there are too many four-year graduates and not enough folks with some college and no B.A., which would include occupational degrees, occupational certificates and associate degrees. That's wrong. There's zero job growth for folks like that in the marketplace for the last six years, and then, obviously, it's completely collapsed for high school and less than high school educations.
So what employers are actually doing are hiring people with four-year degrees.
So Michigan's fundamental problem is that unless we change our industry mix, we're going to be one of the poorest places in the country.
That's why, from our perspective, the basic story is about why retaining and attracting college-educated talent, particularly young mobile college-educated talent, has become a linchpin to economic growth.
Harris: That's a startling scenario when you think that the only employable people are those who have a degree. That makes it a scenario where we have to focus on the disparity between the haves and the have-nots.
It also creates a framework where entrepreneurship fits into almost every segment of society. Where do we find those diamonds in the rough and get them producing and manufacturing? That's where some of your innovators and your entrepreneurs are, and this is where jobs can come from.
We must cultivate and provide the necessary resources that will help individuals who necessarily do not have a formal education, but individuals who are trained in putting food on the table and, most importantly, communities that are left out of the equation in most scenarios, which are minority groups, women and immigrants and, most importantly, African-Americans, who really find themselves in a position where they would like to be employable but connecting to the overall economic fabric of society is very difficult.
Venegas: Even students from the inner city realize education is their liberation. Are we giving them the best education possible so they can compete in college?
That's where we're really failing because they don't have technology, they don't have the education, they don't have the updated school books, so can't compete. That's where the businesses and the education, we have to work together so we can give people opportunities because there are a lot of great students out there who are willing to do what it takes.
Glazer: I think talent has become the headline for two different conversations. I think it's important to make a distinction between the two. One is skill shortages. It's occupations for which there seem to be more demand than supply. The second way is what we've been working on at Michigan Future for a while, the whole notion of how talent relates to economic growth. That's not really as much about meeting the current needs of employers, it's about how talent has turned out to be the asset that matters most in growing Michigan, growing economies and particularly growing high-wage economies.
The only folks who have job growth since the recession started are folks with four-year degrees or more, period.
The story that we're told over and over and over again is that there are too many four-year graduates and not enough folks with some college and no B.A., which would include occupational degrees, occupational certificates and associate degrees. That's wrong. There's zero job growth for folks like that in the marketplace for the last six years, and then, obviously, it's completely collapsed for high school and less than high school educations.
So what employers are actually doing are hiring people with four-year degrees.
So Michigan's fundamental problem is that unless we change our industry mix, we're going to be one of the poorest places in the country.
That's why, from our perspective, the basic story is about why retaining and attracting college-educated talent, particularly young mobile college-educated talent, has become a linchpin to economic growth.
Harris: That's a startling scenario when you think that the only employable people are those who have a degree. That makes it a scenario where we have to focus on the disparity between the haves and the have-nots.
It also creates a framework where entrepreneurship fits into almost every segment of society. Where do we find those diamonds in the rough and get them producing and manufacturing? That's where some of your innovators and your entrepreneurs are, and this is where jobs can come from.
We must cultivate and provide the necessary resources that will help individuals who necessarily do not have a formal education, but individuals who are trained in putting food on the table and, most importantly, communities that are left out of the equation in most scenarios, which are minority groups, women and immigrants and, most importantly, African-Americans, who really find themselves in a position where they would like to be employable but connecting to the overall economic fabric of society is very difficult.
Venegas: Even students from the inner city realize education is their liberation. Are we giving them the best education possible so they can compete in college?
That's where we're really failing because they don't have technology, they don't have the education, they don't have the updated school books, so can't compete. That's where the businesses and the education, we have to work together so we can give people opportunities because there are a lot of great students out there who are willing to do what it takes.
Kevin Stotts, Talent 2025: "We have specific data that shows over the next 10 years we’re going to require 50,000 more bachelor’s degrees to meet the occupational demand and at the same time 50,000 fewer jobs requiring less than a high school degree or diploma."
Stotts: We have specific data that shows over the next 10 years we're going to require 50,000 more bachelor's degrees to meet the occupational demand and at the same time 50,000 fewer jobs requiring less than a high school degree or diploma. We do still see demand increasing for credentials and associate degrees.
Over the past couple of years, it's been a buyer's market for talent for those occupations, but as that talent has been absorbed or moved on out of the state, you have employers looking at their workforce and saying, "In 10 years, I'm going lose 200 tool and die makers or 200 CNC operators."
I have an employer who's not even posting positions who can hire 60 engineering technicians today if they could find that person. These are high wage; the training would be paid for.
Carroll: I don't question Lou's data, but we shouldn't turn a blind eye to people who don't have college degrees. I know we like to bring in really good people and train them internally, and I think businesses should do that.
I think they could improve in terms of loyalty and having a better chance to mold people their way, bringing in people who have good integrity, good character, good work ethic, good energy. I think employers would get what they need and it would also help underserved communities.
Over the past couple of years, it's been a buyer's market for talent for those occupations, but as that talent has been absorbed or moved on out of the state, you have employers looking at their workforce and saying, "In 10 years, I'm going lose 200 tool and die makers or 200 CNC operators."
I have an employer who's not even posting positions who can hire 60 engineering technicians today if they could find that person. These are high wage; the training would be paid for.
Carroll: I don't question Lou's data, but we shouldn't turn a blind eye to people who don't have college degrees. I know we like to bring in really good people and train them internally, and I think businesses should do that.
I think they could improve in terms of loyalty and having a better chance to mold people their way, bringing in people who have good integrity, good character, good work ethic, good energy. I think employers would get what they need and it would also help underserved communities.
Goodaker: Are they then ready for the next job, though?
Carroll: I think most people learn more on the job than they do in college. It's not a knock against college. I believe strongly in education for the sake of education. I think it's great to learn astronomy, philosophy, a lot of things -- not necessarily what you're going to use in your career.
But I went to business school and law school, which are hard-core vocational style training, and I barely remember a thing I learned there. Everything I learned I learned on the job.
Carroll: I think most people learn more on the job than they do in college. It's not a knock against college. I believe strongly in education for the sake of education. I think it's great to learn astronomy, philosophy, a lot of things -- not necessarily what you're going to use in your career.
But I went to business school and law school, which are hard-core vocational style training, and I barely remember a thing I learned there. Everything I learned I learned on the job.
Amy Cell, MEDC: "We have a population in some of our most challenged communities in Michigan who haven’t had the opportunities or the education systems, or they have met other barriers."
Cell: I can't let the opportunity pass to mention our program, Opportunity Ventures, which really focuses on people who have not had opportunities.
We have a population in some of our most challenged communities in Michigan who haven't had the opportunities or the education, or they have met other barriers.
We have a program where there are entry-level jobs that pay a living wage and we can give support, addressing day care, transportation issues. We even have a job coach that will coach on basic concepts, things that maybe participants didn't have role models for.
We got an email this week from one of our employers raving about the job coaching piece as being a key retention tool. We target unemployed people who wouldn't necessarily get a job in this economy, people who don't have a high school degree, recently released from prison, long-term unemployed. We have a retention rate of almost 90 percent in the short-term, so we're hoping that we can continue to work with them and get them connected to other educational resources so they can move up the pipeline.
Hopefully this is helping to break poverty cycles so that their children are more likely to finish high school and get those degrees.
Originally Published: May 30, 2013 6:00 AM Modified: June 02, 2013 9:54 AM
Topics on the edges of the roundtable
Lisa Katz, Workforce Intelligence Network: "I talk with a lot of IT companies, and one of them was saying to me, you go down to Campus Martius, there are all these people having conversations and probably 30 percent of them are recruiters."
Related links
IT's ID: In demand
Lisa Katz, Workforce Intelligence Network: In the last year, Southeast Michigan had more than 300,000 new job postings from employers looking for talent. We saw information technology demand grow in the last five years by 55 percent, which is a rate higher than Silicon Valley. For software developers, it was 114 percent. Mechanical engineers are the number-one in-demand occupation in our region. Those are great opportunities for young technical talent that want to know that if one job doesn't work out, there's another one that's just a block away.
I talk with a lot of IT companies, and one of them was saying to me, you go down to Campus Martius, there are all these people having conversations and probably 30 percent of them are recruiters. They're sitting out there at lunchtime, trying to get the different technology people walking by because they're looking for this talent.
It's a great environment. Think about being that in demand, and that opportunity is right here in our backyard, and since when have we been able to talk about that?
Lisa Katz, Workforce Intelligence Network: In the last year, Southeast Michigan had more than 300,000 new job postings from employers looking for talent. We saw information technology demand grow in the last five years by 55 percent, which is a rate higher than Silicon Valley. For software developers, it was 114 percent. Mechanical engineers are the number-one in-demand occupation in our region. Those are great opportunities for young technical talent that want to know that if one job doesn't work out, there's another one that's just a block away.
I talk with a lot of IT companies, and one of them was saying to me, you go down to Campus Martius, there are all these people having conversations and probably 30 percent of them are recruiters. They're sitting out there at lunchtime, trying to get the different technology people walking by because they're looking for this talent.
It's a great environment. Think about being that in demand, and that opportunity is right here in our backyard, and since when have we been able to talk about that?
On diversity
Lou Glazer, Michigan Future: I'd say a common characteristic of places that have high talent concentrations is that they are more welcoming. The welcoming stuff matters enormously. If you're anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-people of different races, talent's not coming, period. That stuff matters enormously.
Ken Harris, Michigan Black Chamber: We can't be afraid to say here in the state of Michigan that we want to remain competitive with the rest of the country and our focus should be on talent acquisition, recruit, retention, but they should not be provided for just one group or race or creed or color, etc. I truly believe this is the foundational bed for opportunity to occur in Michigan.
Lou Glazer, Michigan Future: I'd say a common characteristic of places that have high talent concentrations is that they are more welcoming. The welcoming stuff matters enormously. If you're anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-people of different races, talent's not coming, period. That stuff matters enormously.
Ken Harris, Michigan Black Chamber: We can't be afraid to say here in the state of Michigan that we want to remain competitive with the rest of the country and our focus should be on talent acquisition, recruit, retention, but they should not be provided for just one group or race or creed or color, etc. I truly believe this is the foundational bed for opportunity to occur in Michigan.
Linzie Venegas, Ideal Group: "We believe that if you take care of your community, your community will take care of your business.”
On business and community
Linzie Venegas, Ideal Group: We have 250 employees, and we've really gotten our whole company and our employees really engaged in the community, and we've done just a variety of different things. Not only do we do stuff with Cristo Rey, but we have a nonprofit called Detroit Hispanic Development Corp. We have a "clubhouse" and we have a bus that goes to all the high schools in southwest Detroit to take them there.
It's like a safe haven. We have a recording studio, we have a gym, we have a TV, we have tutors. And what this does is it helps protect kids who don't want to be in gang-related activities because that is a very big obstacle for these kids after school that kids in the suburbs don't have to deal with.
We believe that if you take care of your community, your community will take care of your business.
Giulio Desando, Tata Technologies: We have a program in India that we use to train our internal people on some technical and design tools, but what we've done is go to the universities and offered them free access to the tools and software. We've also brought in our own engineers to help mentor them, and then when they graduate, we've been able to hire them. That's something that we're looking to model here.
The Tata model itself talks about taking care of your community, and we're trying to build those models to do that.
There are studies that show that companies that have survived the longest are companies that have taken care of their community, so their community takes care of them.
Linzie Venegas, Ideal Group: We have 250 employees, and we've really gotten our whole company and our employees really engaged in the community, and we've done just a variety of different things. Not only do we do stuff with Cristo Rey, but we have a nonprofit called Detroit Hispanic Development Corp. We have a "clubhouse" and we have a bus that goes to all the high schools in southwest Detroit to take them there.
It's like a safe haven. We have a recording studio, we have a gym, we have a TV, we have tutors. And what this does is it helps protect kids who don't want to be in gang-related activities because that is a very big obstacle for these kids after school that kids in the suburbs don't have to deal with.
We believe that if you take care of your community, your community will take care of your business.
Giulio Desando, Tata Technologies: We have a program in India that we use to train our internal people on some technical and design tools, but what we've done is go to the universities and offered them free access to the tools and software. We've also brought in our own engineers to help mentor them, and then when they graduate, we've been able to hire them. That's something that we're looking to model here.
The Tata model itself talks about taking care of your community, and we're trying to build those models to do that.
There are studies that show that companies that have survived the longest are companies that have taken care of their community, so their community takes care of them.
Originally Published: May 31, 2013 6:00 AM Modified: June 04, 2013 6:18 AM
Jobs for a generation: Market opening up for millennials; having technical skills helps
By Nathan Skid
NATHAN SKID/CDB
"I was just trying to get by ... I knew I had these years ahead of me trying to get out of debt," Michael Hall says of his post-college work experience.
Related links
Every day, at exactly 7:43 a.m., Michael Hall, 27, pulls out of his driveway to put in his eight hours driving a forklift, watering plants and working as a cashier at Panetta's Landscape Supply in Taylor.
It's only a 10-minute drive from his 850-square-foot house in Lincoln Park, but it provides Hall enough time to reflect on how his life is different than he expected.
Hall says he formed a lawn-cutting service at age 15, graduated third in his class in high school, earned his real-estate license at age 18 and owned three rental properties before he could legally drink a beer, and graduated from Wayne State University in 2008 with a 3.6 grade-point average and a degree in business management.
But his degree was almost an aside; at the time, he had a thriving lawn-care business with 80 yards to maintain and three rental properties to help pay the bills.
But in 2008, Hall's rental properties became unsustainable; they were in the wrong part of town and drew unreliable tenants. His biggest lawn-care client stopped paying, and he couldn't make up the loss.
"It came to a point where I was just trying to get by," Hall said. "It was tough because I knew I had these years ahead of me trying to get out of debt -- just trying to survive."
In 2009, Hall, with a young bride and a 2-year-old in tow, took his current job to put food on the table, to support a family, to hold on while he looked for a job to put his degree to good use.
Now Hall says he is taking classes if for no other reason than to be able to check the box on job searching sites that says "recent grad."
"I am afraid that I am too far removed from school," Hall said. "When you go to the websites likeMonster.com to apply for positions, they usually have a section for people switching careers or just out of college. Where do I fall?"
But there are signs of hope for Hall and other millennials like him who entered the labor market during the recession and have since remained underemployed.
Rebecca Cohen, director of research and policy for Detroit-based Workforce Intelligence Network, said employment for millennials in Southeast Michigan, across all demographics and education levels, has risen by 6.8 percent from January 2010 through the first quarter of 2012.
The data does not reveal what type of jobs, but it does show that a major portion of job postings are for high-skilled, well-paying positions like accountants, mechanical engineers, computer programmers and software developers.
Cohen says the problem is 96 percent of those high-skilled job postings require more than one year of experience.
"Employers are trying to figure out how to open up positions for entry-level workers," Cohen said. "If you have experience, you're fine. The challenge is getting that experience."
Damian Zikakis, director of career services at Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, says millennials like Hall can use their experiences to their benefit.
"A frustrating thing for students that graduated in 2008, 2009 and 2010 is they had to take whatever work they could find, and then they got accustomed to a paycheck," Zikakis said. "The problem is they don't know how to describe their work experience in a way that demonstrates that they have gained certain skills."
Shades of gray
It's difficult to put a finger on the pulse of the millennial generation, mainly because experiences vary so greatly due to differences in education and when they entered the job market.
It's only a 10-minute drive from his 850-square-foot house in Lincoln Park, but it provides Hall enough time to reflect on how his life is different than he expected.
Hall says he formed a lawn-cutting service at age 15, graduated third in his class in high school, earned his real-estate license at age 18 and owned three rental properties before he could legally drink a beer, and graduated from Wayne State University in 2008 with a 3.6 grade-point average and a degree in business management.
But his degree was almost an aside; at the time, he had a thriving lawn-care business with 80 yards to maintain and three rental properties to help pay the bills.
But in 2008, Hall's rental properties became unsustainable; they were in the wrong part of town and drew unreliable tenants. His biggest lawn-care client stopped paying, and he couldn't make up the loss.
"It came to a point where I was just trying to get by," Hall said. "It was tough because I knew I had these years ahead of me trying to get out of debt -- just trying to survive."
In 2009, Hall, with a young bride and a 2-year-old in tow, took his current job to put food on the table, to support a family, to hold on while he looked for a job to put his degree to good use.
Now Hall says he is taking classes if for no other reason than to be able to check the box on job searching sites that says "recent grad."
"I am afraid that I am too far removed from school," Hall said. "When you go to the websites likeMonster.com to apply for positions, they usually have a section for people switching careers or just out of college. Where do I fall?"
But there are signs of hope for Hall and other millennials like him who entered the labor market during the recession and have since remained underemployed.
Rebecca Cohen, director of research and policy for Detroit-based Workforce Intelligence Network, said employment for millennials in Southeast Michigan, across all demographics and education levels, has risen by 6.8 percent from January 2010 through the first quarter of 2012.
The data does not reveal what type of jobs, but it does show that a major portion of job postings are for high-skilled, well-paying positions like accountants, mechanical engineers, computer programmers and software developers.
Cohen says the problem is 96 percent of those high-skilled job postings require more than one year of experience.
"Employers are trying to figure out how to open up positions for entry-level workers," Cohen said. "If you have experience, you're fine. The challenge is getting that experience."
Damian Zikakis, director of career services at Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, says millennials like Hall can use their experiences to their benefit.
"A frustrating thing for students that graduated in 2008, 2009 and 2010 is they had to take whatever work they could find, and then they got accustomed to a paycheck," Zikakis said. "The problem is they don't know how to describe their work experience in a way that demonstrates that they have gained certain skills."
Shades of gray
It's difficult to put a finger on the pulse of the millennial generation, mainly because experiences vary so greatly due to differences in education and when they entered the job market.
Kristina Rembisz
For every Hall, there is a Kristina Rembisz, 26.
Rembisz graduated from the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in industrial and systems manufacturing and accepted a position at Novi-based Tata Technologies Inc., where she is a trainer on CATIA, a three-dimensional computer-aided design program used by engineers and designers in myriad industries.
And for every Rembisz, there is a Matthew Debuel, 28.
Debuel earned a bachelor's degree in fine art from the College for Creative Studies in 2009 then worked a couple of odd jobs in metro Detroit but was unimpressed with the types of career opportunities for him in Southeast Michigan.
"It just didn't seem like there was much of an opportunity for creatives," Debuel said. "I wasn't interested in doing anything with cars, and that was kind of the main thing around there."
In 2011, Debuel moved to Boston, where he is working two part-time jobs, one as a deliveryman for an art museum and the other as a freelance photo editor and location scout for shoe maker Converse Inc.
Hall, Rembisz and Debuel entered the labor pool within a few years of each other, so what makes their stories different? Are their collective experiences that dissimilar from previous generations?
There is little question that over the past five years the millennial generation, those born from 1982 to 2000, even those with college degrees, have sometimes had a difficult time finding meaningful employment in Southeast Michigan. But are things as bad for as they seem for college graduates entering today's workforce?
Lou Glazer, president of Ann Arbor-based think-tank Michigan Future Inc., says the labor market, even during boom times, was never as good as it seemed.
"Everyone assumes before the recession that everyone was getting a job in their chosen field. That wasn't true," Glazer said. "To some degree we are exaggerating how bad young graduates have it."
The good news, he said, is today's job market will not be an indicator of their entire career.
"We tend to view the experience of young people entering the labor market over the last five years as if it's going to be indicative of their entire 40-year career," Glazer said. "Those who have the talent and the skills do better as the economy does."
Placement data compiled from area universities show an increase in hiring of recent graduates.
According to Michigan State University's 2012 Destination Survey Report, which surveyed 2,794 graduates across all disciplines, shows 57 percent of graduates were hired right out of college, up from 53 percent in 2011 and 46 percent in 2010.
Of the 547 business school graduates at Michigan State who graduated during the spring semester 2012, 71 percent found meaningful employment while just 21 percent returned for graduate school.
Compare that to MSU's graduating business class of 2009, from which 50 percent of grads entered a graduate program and only 30 percent found full-time employment.
Phil Gardner, director of MSU's Collegiate Employment Research Institute, said graduate school enrollment is a good indicator of the state of the job market.
"When the labor market is really good, about 20 percent of our students go to graduate school, meaning about 75 percent are going into the workforce," Gardner said. "Today, the number of kids going to graduate school is going down -- meaning they feel more confident about finding a job."
Gardner said he expects the hiring rate of all graduates to stay around 57 percent in 2013, while he said the business school graduate hiring rate could increase by up to 12 percent.
Flexibility is key
At the height of the recession during the summer of 2008, Detroit-based Quicken Loans Inc., the company known locally as much for its expansive internship program as for its mortgage-banking business, went on a months-long hiring freeze.
Rembisz graduated from the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in industrial and systems manufacturing and accepted a position at Novi-based Tata Technologies Inc., where she is a trainer on CATIA, a three-dimensional computer-aided design program used by engineers and designers in myriad industries.
And for every Rembisz, there is a Matthew Debuel, 28.
Debuel earned a bachelor's degree in fine art from the College for Creative Studies in 2009 then worked a couple of odd jobs in metro Detroit but was unimpressed with the types of career opportunities for him in Southeast Michigan.
"It just didn't seem like there was much of an opportunity for creatives," Debuel said. "I wasn't interested in doing anything with cars, and that was kind of the main thing around there."
In 2011, Debuel moved to Boston, where he is working two part-time jobs, one as a deliveryman for an art museum and the other as a freelance photo editor and location scout for shoe maker Converse Inc.
Hall, Rembisz and Debuel entered the labor pool within a few years of each other, so what makes their stories different? Are their collective experiences that dissimilar from previous generations?
There is little question that over the past five years the millennial generation, those born from 1982 to 2000, even those with college degrees, have sometimes had a difficult time finding meaningful employment in Southeast Michigan. But are things as bad for as they seem for college graduates entering today's workforce?
Lou Glazer, president of Ann Arbor-based think-tank Michigan Future Inc., says the labor market, even during boom times, was never as good as it seemed.
"Everyone assumes before the recession that everyone was getting a job in their chosen field. That wasn't true," Glazer said. "To some degree we are exaggerating how bad young graduates have it."
The good news, he said, is today's job market will not be an indicator of their entire career.
"We tend to view the experience of young people entering the labor market over the last five years as if it's going to be indicative of their entire 40-year career," Glazer said. "Those who have the talent and the skills do better as the economy does."
Placement data compiled from area universities show an increase in hiring of recent graduates.
According to Michigan State University's 2012 Destination Survey Report, which surveyed 2,794 graduates across all disciplines, shows 57 percent of graduates were hired right out of college, up from 53 percent in 2011 and 46 percent in 2010.
Of the 547 business school graduates at Michigan State who graduated during the spring semester 2012, 71 percent found meaningful employment while just 21 percent returned for graduate school.
Compare that to MSU's graduating business class of 2009, from which 50 percent of grads entered a graduate program and only 30 percent found full-time employment.
Phil Gardner, director of MSU's Collegiate Employment Research Institute, said graduate school enrollment is a good indicator of the state of the job market.
"When the labor market is really good, about 20 percent of our students go to graduate school, meaning about 75 percent are going into the workforce," Gardner said. "Today, the number of kids going to graduate school is going down -- meaning they feel more confident about finding a job."
Gardner said he expects the hiring rate of all graduates to stay around 57 percent in 2013, while he said the business school graduate hiring rate could increase by up to 12 percent.
Flexibility is key
At the height of the recession during the summer of 2008, Detroit-based Quicken Loans Inc., the company known locally as much for its expansive internship program as for its mortgage-banking business, went on a months-long hiring freeze.
Michelle Salvatore
"It was devastating," said Michelle Salvatore, director of recruiting for Quicken Loans. "We went through four months in the summer of 2008 where we just simply stopped hiring. We finally added a total of five team members in September of 2008."
But as the economy recovered, so too did Quicken's hiring practices.
The only problem for millennials was the talent pool was stocked with experienced workers, making it difficult for them to get noticed.
But Salvatore said the tide turned in late 2009, shortly after the company moved its headquarters from Livonia to the heart of downtown Detroit.
"This whole internship program really kind of developed when we decided to move downtown," Salvatore said. "Everyone was talking about brain drain. We wanted to change that through an internship program."
In 2008, Quicken, still based in Livonia at the time, did not have an internship program. In 2009, it had 40 interns throughout the company.
But as of March 30 this year, Salvatore said she had 11,239 applications for 1,000 internship positions.
Salvatore said Quicken hired 83 percent of last year's intern class that was eligible for full-time work.
One of those hires was Jordan Fylonenko.
Fylonenko, public relations associate at Quicken Loans, said his friends with finance degrees laughed at him when he graduated from Western Michigan University in 2009 with a communications degree. Fylonenko said he knew he was facing an uphill battle after graduation, which is why he began laying the groundwork for an internship before he walked across the stage.
"I didn't have preconceived notions that someone had a briefcase full of money for me when I graduated," he said.
Fylonenko said he sent a tweet to the social media manager at Quicken, which landed him his internship and ultimately a full-time position.
"You have to lay the groundwork for your network before you need the job," Fylonenko warned. "Do the internships, network and reach out to people in order to build up a repertoire and contacts."
But Salvatore said recent grads need to be realistic.
"One of the major points millennials miss is they look at it like, 'I have a degree now, this is exactly what I'm going to do,' " Salvatore said. "You have to be willing to expand, be flexible."
David Carroll, vice president of miscellaneous stuff at Quicken, says flexibility is an imperative for job seekers, young and old.
"Don't be so dogmatic and so set in your ways that you can't deviate," Carroll said. "I got my start working in Chicago and living in a high-rise, but I left to take a pay cut and work for Dan Gilbert because I could see the opportunity to work for someone with huge ambition."
But flexibility can only take you so far.
The STEM
Giulio Desando, talent acquisition manager at Tata, said there are plenty of well-paying job opportunities in Southeast Michigan, there just aren't enough graduates entering those fields.
"There were 500 grads in mechanical engineering programs in universities across the region in 2007," Desando said. "In 2011, there were only 358. So there are fewer and fewer people going into mechanical engineering or any of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) programs, but there is more and more work in those areas."
Desando says it is up to corporations to make sure college-bound millennials consider an education in one of the STEM disciplines.
"I think as employers, we have an obligation to help steer some of these kids, as early as high school, into the STEM programs, because, as you can see, the population is decreasing in those areas," Desando said. "We need to make sure that we are also training and developing them to give careers to some of these millennial employees."
Debra Lawson, founder of the Farmington Hills arm of Philadelphia-based Management Recruiters International Inc., a management recruiting firm, said the dynamic of the labor market in Southeast Michigan is changing into a candidate-driven market rather than a company-driven one, meaning there are fewer qualified job candidates than available positions.
"Companies realized they needed to have mechanisms to start growing their own people instead of always drawing experienced people. I've seen a number of companies recognize this."
According to data compiled by Boston-based Burning Glass International Inc., an online job posting aggregator, demand for skilled workers in Southeast Michigan has grown dramatically since the beginning of the recession.
Since 2008, demand for engineers in Southeast Michigan rose by 103 percent, IT postings rose by 55 percent, and demand for software developers rose by 114 percent. In fact, Southeast Michigan outpaced Silicon Valley in terms of increased demand for software developers during the same time period.
At the end of the first quarter of 2013, there were 2,434 mechanical engineer job postings, 2,121 computer programmers, 2,101 software developers and 2,060 nursing positions in Southeast Michigan.
So, it's not a matter of if the jobs exist, it's more a question of college graduates earning the types of degrees necessary to secure those positions.
A look ahead
Gardner and Cohen say one of the biggest opportunities for millennials will come as the boomer generation exits the workforce. The only problem is, no one knows when that will be.
"Boomers like to work. That is the oddity no one admits," Gardner said. "Boomers so identify with work that they feel lost once they leave."
Boomers are just beginning to enter retirement age -- the oldest boomers turn 67 this year. But Michigan is an aging state.
According to the Workforce Intelligence Network's first-quarter survey of Southeast Michigan's labor pool, about a quarter of the workforce is over the age of 55.
In fact, according to the survey, workers over 55 were the only age group that actually increased employment between 2002 and 2012.
The study also found that 20 percent of skilled trades and technician jobs, from operating room nurses to computerized numerical control welders, are currently filled by workers over 55.
Gardner said the only downside to the boomers' eventual mass exit from the labor pool will be that companies are expected to fill only 60 percent of the vacant positions due to retirement.
"Employers have looked at all these retirees and said they don't need to replace them," Gardner said. "We shifted the economy from a production-based economy where people are plugged in on the line to a network, service-based, technology-based economy, and we simply don't need as many workers."
But Cohen says that as people age out of the workforce, opportunities for younger employees to fill highly skilled positions will rise.
"Employers are trying to figure out how to open up positions for entry-level workers in order to get younger employees the experience they need to fill the positions left by retirees," Cohen said. "The challenge is getting them the experience they need."
But as the economy recovered, so too did Quicken's hiring practices.
The only problem for millennials was the talent pool was stocked with experienced workers, making it difficult for them to get noticed.
But Salvatore said the tide turned in late 2009, shortly after the company moved its headquarters from Livonia to the heart of downtown Detroit.
"This whole internship program really kind of developed when we decided to move downtown," Salvatore said. "Everyone was talking about brain drain. We wanted to change that through an internship program."
In 2008, Quicken, still based in Livonia at the time, did not have an internship program. In 2009, it had 40 interns throughout the company.
But as of March 30 this year, Salvatore said she had 11,239 applications for 1,000 internship positions.
Salvatore said Quicken hired 83 percent of last year's intern class that was eligible for full-time work.
One of those hires was Jordan Fylonenko.
Fylonenko, public relations associate at Quicken Loans, said his friends with finance degrees laughed at him when he graduated from Western Michigan University in 2009 with a communications degree. Fylonenko said he knew he was facing an uphill battle after graduation, which is why he began laying the groundwork for an internship before he walked across the stage.
"I didn't have preconceived notions that someone had a briefcase full of money for me when I graduated," he said.
Fylonenko said he sent a tweet to the social media manager at Quicken, which landed him his internship and ultimately a full-time position.
"You have to lay the groundwork for your network before you need the job," Fylonenko warned. "Do the internships, network and reach out to people in order to build up a repertoire and contacts."
But Salvatore said recent grads need to be realistic.
"One of the major points millennials miss is they look at it like, 'I have a degree now, this is exactly what I'm going to do,' " Salvatore said. "You have to be willing to expand, be flexible."
David Carroll, vice president of miscellaneous stuff at Quicken, says flexibility is an imperative for job seekers, young and old.
"Don't be so dogmatic and so set in your ways that you can't deviate," Carroll said. "I got my start working in Chicago and living in a high-rise, but I left to take a pay cut and work for Dan Gilbert because I could see the opportunity to work for someone with huge ambition."
But flexibility can only take you so far.
The STEM
Giulio Desando, talent acquisition manager at Tata, said there are plenty of well-paying job opportunities in Southeast Michigan, there just aren't enough graduates entering those fields.
"There were 500 grads in mechanical engineering programs in universities across the region in 2007," Desando said. "In 2011, there were only 358. So there are fewer and fewer people going into mechanical engineering or any of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) programs, but there is more and more work in those areas."
Desando says it is up to corporations to make sure college-bound millennials consider an education in one of the STEM disciplines.
"I think as employers, we have an obligation to help steer some of these kids, as early as high school, into the STEM programs, because, as you can see, the population is decreasing in those areas," Desando said. "We need to make sure that we are also training and developing them to give careers to some of these millennial employees."
Debra Lawson, founder of the Farmington Hills arm of Philadelphia-based Management Recruiters International Inc., a management recruiting firm, said the dynamic of the labor market in Southeast Michigan is changing into a candidate-driven market rather than a company-driven one, meaning there are fewer qualified job candidates than available positions.
"Companies realized they needed to have mechanisms to start growing their own people instead of always drawing experienced people. I've seen a number of companies recognize this."
According to data compiled by Boston-based Burning Glass International Inc., an online job posting aggregator, demand for skilled workers in Southeast Michigan has grown dramatically since the beginning of the recession.
Since 2008, demand for engineers in Southeast Michigan rose by 103 percent, IT postings rose by 55 percent, and demand for software developers rose by 114 percent. In fact, Southeast Michigan outpaced Silicon Valley in terms of increased demand for software developers during the same time period.
At the end of the first quarter of 2013, there were 2,434 mechanical engineer job postings, 2,121 computer programmers, 2,101 software developers and 2,060 nursing positions in Southeast Michigan.
So, it's not a matter of if the jobs exist, it's more a question of college graduates earning the types of degrees necessary to secure those positions.
A look ahead
Gardner and Cohen say one of the biggest opportunities for millennials will come as the boomer generation exits the workforce. The only problem is, no one knows when that will be.
"Boomers like to work. That is the oddity no one admits," Gardner said. "Boomers so identify with work that they feel lost once they leave."
Boomers are just beginning to enter retirement age -- the oldest boomers turn 67 this year. But Michigan is an aging state.
According to the Workforce Intelligence Network's first-quarter survey of Southeast Michigan's labor pool, about a quarter of the workforce is over the age of 55.
In fact, according to the survey, workers over 55 were the only age group that actually increased employment between 2002 and 2012.
The study also found that 20 percent of skilled trades and technician jobs, from operating room nurses to computerized numerical control welders, are currently filled by workers over 55.
Gardner said the only downside to the boomers' eventual mass exit from the labor pool will be that companies are expected to fill only 60 percent of the vacant positions due to retirement.
"Employers have looked at all these retirees and said they don't need to replace them," Gardner said. "We shifted the economy from a production-based economy where people are plugged in on the line to a network, service-based, technology-based economy, and we simply don't need as many workers."
But Cohen says that as people age out of the workforce, opportunities for younger employees to fill highly skilled positions will rise.
"Employers are trying to figure out how to open up positions for entry-level workers in order to get younger employees the experience they need to fill the positions left by retirees," Cohen said. "The challenge is getting them the experience they need."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.