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An economic crossroads for Massachusetts
Op-Ed by Paul S. Grogan
The Boston Globe, August 11, 2007

MASSACHUSETTS has tremendous assets, including a highly educated workforce, a strong "knowledge economy," and world-class higher education, healthcare, and cultural institutions. However, it also faces significant challenges: an aging population, a shrinking labor force, a significant jobs-skills mismatch, and job growth that lags the nation.

The state is at a crossroads. If we do nothing, the region could settle into a long decline, which has certainly happened before. But if civic, government, and business leaders work together to align the region's challenges with the aspirations of its residents, Massachusetts could become a place of unparalleled opportunity.

Recent reports paint a bleak picture. The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University reports that every year since 1990, Massachusetts has been a net exporter of people to other states, and that in the past four years, only New York and Louisiana had higher out-migration rates than our rate of 4.5 percent. Many who left were those we need most -- well-educated young adults between 20 and 45.

These trends are starving the region of the talented workforce it needs to stay competitive. Though this is alarming, there is a silver lining. If we build the right structures and make the right investments in people, Massachusetts could spark a revival of the American Dream of upward mobility. In the coming years we will need "all hands on deck" -- every adult must be in a position to contribute to the economy. To get there, we need to commit to a range of reforms.

First, high quality pre-K programs, which have proven to improve educational outcomes, must be available to all families. Second, we need to strengthen K-12 education, reducing dropout rates, raising standards, improving college readiness, and increasing college-going and completion rates, especially among urban students. Finally, we need to strengthen public higher education, including community colleges, to make a first-rate, higher education affordable to all students.

All of these are critical components of an "opportunity pipeline," but we also must address workforce development for adults -- right away. Labor shortages will compel employers to prioritize workforce development in a way they never have. The engagement of employers is critical to creating a long-term competitiveness strategy based on workforce development programs that are tailored to their needs.

Labor shortages, soon to be pervasive, have already arrived in the Commonwealth's critical healthcare sector. Making up 17 percent of Boston's jobs, healthcare jobs increased 13 percent between 2001 and 2006, while the city's total jobs declined by 5 percent. Consequently, hospitals are facing the costs and instability associated with high vacancy rates and turnover, and a shortage of diverse and qualified job candidates. This is both challenge and opportunity.

With vacancy rates reaching 16 percent -- and expected to worsen -- in some allied health fields, the region's hospitals are looking for talent in new places. Significant untapped labor exists within their own entry-level workforce, but most lack the skills needed to succeed in the training programs that would allow them to move up. If, however, these workers had access to adult basic education and specialized training, enormous opportunities would open.

A recently launched program in Boston attempts to do just this. Three local hospital consortiums, headed respectively by Partners Healthcare, Boston Medical Center, and Beth Israel Deaconess, intend to create training programs that will help their low-level employees move into jobs with family sustaining wages.

Expected to enroll more than 3,200 individuals in the next three years, the hospitals' efforts will increase awareness of job opportunities in allied health and create programs in ESL and pre-college math, English, and science -- often in partnership with community colleges and other nonprofits, and seamlessly connected to higher level training programs. Graduates can increase their salaries by as much as 62 percent, a transformational economic advance. The hospitals are so confident these programs will pay off that, after foundation funding gets them rolling, the institutions will incorporate them into their core human resources infrastructure.

Imagine if all of Boston's key industry sectors made this same kind of commitment -- not out of altruism, but out of pragmatic self-interest. In fact the interests of the entire region and the disadvantaged population yearning to advance are perfectly aligned. If we seize this chance we can make what some say is a declining region into the opportunity capital of America.

Paul S. Grogan is president and CEO of the Boston Foundation.

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