Labor Officials: Programs Needed To Close 'Skills Gap'
Building on previous reports that trumpeted warnings about aging workers in Massachusetts and high unemployment rates among younger workers the state will need to replace them, a state report out today calls for new programs to address the problem.
'Closing The Massachusetts Skills Gap,' a report by Commonwealth Corp., a quasi-public organization under the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, as well as a division of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, calls for improved employment outcomes for young workers, an expansion of adult education and English language programs, and an alignment of post-secondary and higher education with the needs of a dynamic and fluid labor market.
Nancy Snyder, Commonwealth Corp.'s president and CEO, said young people need more help gaining a foothold in the working world.
"Since early work experience generates important work readiness skills, and a lack of work history leads to a weak connection to the labor market over a worker's lifetime, creating strategies to increase youth employment must be a priority," Snyder said in a statement.
Central Massachusetts and the state as a whole have not fully recovered from job losses incurred during the Internet bubble recession in the early 2000s. The report says Central Massachusetts lost 5 percent of its jobs between 2001 and 2009 and gained back 2.6 percent between 2009 and 2011.
The state remains nearly 90,000 jobs under peak employment levels in 2001, down 2.6 percent.
The report says labor, economic and education officials need to build on current collaborations to create stronger career pathways, to improve employment among younger workers through high school work experiences and training programs through area employers, and for community colleges to create a "transformation agenda" to create stackable programming that easily builds on prior certifications and will offer more flexible scheduling for unemployed and working adults.
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