Hoosiers education and skill sets aren’t aligned with employer needs

According to Steven Braun, Indiana’s new Commissioner of Workforce Development, in the next decade, the state could see up to a million jobs become available.

Between 300,000 to 400,000 will be created by Indiana businesses. The rest will come from the attrition of the baby boomer generation as it retires.

In a current work climate that finds Dubois County with the state’s lowest unemployment with about a 1,000 new jobs expected to open in the next two years, new solutions are needed to bring workers to the area to cover the gap.

Braun, a Jasper native who stepped down as a state representative to take the commissioner appointment under Gov. Mike Pence in August of 2014, says his department is working hard to analyze the data to work with the state’s education system to funnel students into those jobs.

A problem he noted during a conference held at Vincennes University Jasper Campus Center for Technology, Innovation and Manufacturing Thursday, is the idea permeated in our culture that a four-year degree is the only viable option to a satisfying career.

The event hosted by VUJC and Dubois Strong brought local educators, business owners and legislators together to discuss Braun’s views on the changing education and employment landscape.

Braun is uniquely positioned to advise the state on these issues. He is an entrepreneur with a technology background that has used data driven practices to create a nationwide business consulting firm. During Thursday’s meeting, he drove home the importance of the data the Department of Workforce Development was collecting in regards to the future of education and employment in the state.

“I think that everyone understands that educators typically over the last 30 to 40 years have made decisions on how they build their skillsets into courses, curriculum and degrees largely based upon anecdotal or notional information as it relates to what the economy actually needs or what the employer needs,” Braun said. “There is just no data out there to guide them on that front. Employers have been off on the sidelines saying they aren’t getting the workers they need or the right skillsets and haven’t been that engaged in the process either.”

Under Braun, the Department of Workforce Development’s mission will be to create a demand-driven employment approach. The data will be important in successfully completing that switch.

“We are well underway in doing that,” Braun said.

They have documented the skills necessary for successful employment in occupations across the state. The data has been gathered through interviews with about 10,000 employers across the state to produce a list of 800 occupations. The list, which is updated every two years, will give educators an idea of what skillsets are needed in the state’s economy.

“We can come up with a pretty good projection of the top 50 jobs needed to be filled in the next two years,” Braun said. “This is a pretty good picture of what is needed today to fill the skills gap.”

The skills gap is a big problem in Dubois County where local companies are searching for IT professionals and other advanced skillsets that just don’t exist in the local employment pool.

Dubois County isn’t unique, this problem permeates the state.

To address this skills gap and the burgeoning job crisis that will occur in the next ten years, Braun posits that the state will have to create a talent “pipeline” that addresses everything the state does in education starting from elementary schools all the way to postsecondary education institutes. The plan would also create programs to work with veterans, the unemployed and other groups that will require training to get back into the workforce.

“It’s going to be a real challenge,” he said. “If we can’t be completely aligned around who do we train and what do we train them in regards to skillsets, we aren’t even going to come close to filling that million job number.”

To help create that workforce, the Department of Workforce Development plans on providing schools with counseling tools to provide that data. “We are going to go to them and tell them what jobs are going to be available for them [students] when they graduate,” he said.

A student will also know what jobs will be available to them at different stages of their education. Hopefully, this will assist students in making educational decisions that are less of a financial burden and still fulfill their career goals. “If you graduate from high school, these are the jobs that will be available to you. If you plan on going to a one-year or two year degree, these are the jobs available. A four-year degree or beyond, here is the jobs,” Braun said. “They will have a clear perspective when they decide what education track they want to go down of the likelihood that there’s going to be a job at the end of that rainbow.”

Braun said this was important to consider as current estimates put student loan debt at over a trillion dollars. Students are making big investments in degrees and they are unemployable with those skills. “Currently, people that are 55 and older are doing pretty good in regards to employment,” Braun said. “It’s that 18 to 25 demographic that has the highest unemployment. They aren’t being trained with the right skills to get the right jobs.”

To accomplish these goals, the state will have to change a view on education that has largely been unchanged in 100 to 150 years, Braun said. “The state spends about $9 billion in K-12 education annually, it is the highest of any state as a percentage of budget and, quite frankly, we are in the bottom quartile in just about everything,” he said. “We need to improve.”

If this skills gap can be addressed and the million prospective jobs covered, then Braun says the state can become very strategic about economic development.

In that vein, the state has concentrated on building a healthy business climate and infrastructure improvements but has left the worker behind in regards to wages. That also impacts whether the workforce will be available.

“When companies are looking at investing or staying in Indiana, it’s not the business climate that makes their decision. That is a check in the box; everybody gets tax breaks these days. Infrastructure is important but only impacts the decision 20 to 30 percent depending on the business,” Braun said. “70 to 80 percent of the decision will be based on whether or not they believe they have the workforce and skillsets to build their business.”

Jim Mehling, principal of Forest Park Junior-Senior High School, was in attendance and he agreed that changes needed to be made in education but said the focus needed to shift to creative problem solving and innovation rather than specific vocational skill sets. Vocational skills can last a lifetime, but every job requires a different skill, he said.

“You talked about 55-year-olds are doing really well,” Mehling said to Braun. “It’s because they haven’t learned any specific skills. They are successful because they understand innovation, creativity and problem-solving. We have squeezed that out of our curriculums in the last 15 to 20 years because we now have to reach a bar and take tests.”

Mehling said that the state needs to review what they set as goals for its students.

Braun said he agreed with Mehling, but added that society has dictated that everyone needs a four-year degree. “They are coming out in career counseling planning saying 60 percent of everybody needs a four-year degree,” he said.

But, Braun pointed out that number is deceptive in regards to the current data on what is needed in the Hoosier workforce. “I am saying ‘what is that real number’,” he explained.

He said that those skills are important for any job, but the state needs to refine them into specific skill sets based on what is needed by the state. And, his department planned on determining and providing that data to help hone education in the state.

Braun said that if the state through his office can successfully implement the workforce vision, Indiana will be the first state in the country to align the education and training assets around building the right skill sets to drive the economy. “We believe it will have a huge competitive social and economic benefit for the state,” he said.