Summit to explore skills gap causes, solutions

(Correction, Oct. 23, 10 a.m.)
Is there a skills gap in Rhode Island?
That is, are available jobs going unfilled or being taken by employees who then cost companies, large and small, thousands of dollars in training hours and instruction?
Is this because the state’s educational system and higher education institutions aren’t preparing students for today’s job market?
Or, is the real problem a talent shortage, meaning that in-need industries, including midskill trades, have somehow failed to attract new workers to their depleting ranks? Is this talent shortage made worse by a so-called brain drain, in which recent college graduates are fleeing Rhode Island because there aren’t enough jobs?
The answers appear to be yes – to all of the above, according to education and private-sector leaders who will participate in the Providence Business News Summit, Employers and Education on Oct. 30 at the Crown Plaza Hotel Providence-Warwick in Warwick.
“Workforce development and education and economic development need to be better attuned to each other’s needs and responsibilities so we can hopefully create a more vibrant Rhode Island for all its citizens,” said Steven Kitchin, vice president for corporate education and training at New England Institute of Technology. “We are at a critical juncture. There are some decisions about Rhode Island’s future that are going to be based in some part on our ability to have our workers meet the needs of our region’s employees.”
Kitchin and other speakers will come together in two panel discussions at the summit.
One discussion will center on mid-skill jobs and how to align what employers need with what students are learning.
The second discussion will focus on higher and continuing education’s role in preparing students for high-skilled jobs in technology, health care and engineering, as well as training them in soft skills. “[There are many] conversations around the high unemployment rate and how we get our state back on track,” said Ray DiPasquale, president of the Community College of Rhode Island and Rhode Island’s commissioner of higher education. “I think it’s an opportunity to talk out loud amongst each other. [Is] there really a gap in our state? That’s a great question because I’m not sure anyone has answered it efficiently.”
Rhode Island has been plagued by a dismal unemployment rate, hovering around 10 percent – the second worst in the United States.
Many businesses and others have identified a skills gap as a driving force behind the unemployment rate and champion that there are – and will be – jobs available for the people who have the right skills and training.
That sentiment has focused on both mid-level [trade and manufacturing] and high-level [those in the science, technology, engineering, math and health care] skilled industries.
“I think there is a skills gap in the entire United States,” said Ronald Machtley, president of Bryant University. “Is it more acute in Rhode Island? I would say yes. Employers and education are so inexplicably linked that you can’t talk about economic development without having a conversation first about education.”
Machtley traces the problem to a “major economic shift” in that Rhode Island has gone from a manufacturing economy based on physical skills to one mixed with a technology economy.
The first panel on midskill jobs will examine what industries have the greatest demand, whether educators understand that labor market, and how businesses can be involved in private-public partnerships. “If anything, there maybe aren’t enough private businesses that are reaching out or receptive enough. I give the schools credit,” said Pierre LaPerriere , senior vice president, Gilbane, Inc., who oversees staffing and internships for the building firm.
LaPerriere said that though Gilbane, which has several partnerships and programs with area schools, hasn’t seen a problem in meeting its Rhode Island employment needs, there is an issue in filling positions nationwide and that there will be a future worker shortage.
“It’s easily forecasted that the construction industry will be down a million people within the next 10 years,” he said. “We are reaching out at the high school level to make sure we present a positive image of the construction industry and we think that’s half the battle.”
The summit’s second panel will include discussion on how regional universities and colleges are preparing students for today’s job market, including what employers identify as soft skills.
Tim Hebert, CEO of Atrion Networking Corp., said one of his company’s largest concerns is that hiring candidates often lack “basic professional skills.
“They don’t know how to communicate or conduct the interview process. We are very capable of training them to be technically [skilled]. In the last five or 10 years, it’s gotten harder and harder to find great people who have all the things we’re looking for,” he said.
In addition to Kitchin, DiPasquale, Machtley, LaPerriere and Hebert, panelists include Dennis Littky, co-founder, the Met School; David Dooley, president, the University of Rhode Island; Andrea Castaneda, accelerating school performance, the R.I. Department of Education; Steven Adams, partner, Taylor Duane Barton & Gilman LLP; and Brendon Melton, senior vice president, Lifespan. •

Correction: Pierre LaPerriere last name was originally printed as “LaPierre”

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