Keywords: workforce, workforce development, community and economic development, Alabama, job growth, industry, technical, skilled, unskilled, workers, retraining, school-to-career, new beginnings, workforce-preparedness

The Community Resource Development (CRD) unit of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES) publishes Action once each quarter. The goal of the CRD unit is to help people solve community problems, take advantage of opportunities, and build on their assets. To accomplish this, the CRD unit provides educational and technical assistance in economic development, leadership development, strategic planning, environmental education, community health, workforce development, and public policy education. We also link community groups to internal and external resources.

CRD's involvement in workforce development issues is the focus of this Summer 2001 issue of Action. Jacquelyn P. Robinson, Extension community workforce development specialist and CRD faculty member, is the primary contributor to this issue.

The next issue of Action, Fall 2001, will highlight the NEW 4-H program in Alabama. For more information on these topics or suggestions for additional topics, contact the editor at (334) 844-3517, or send a fax to (334) 844-9022, or e-mail jchesnut@acesag.auburn.edu.

J. Thomas Chesnutt
Editor
Extension Tourism Specialist

Alabama is changing. According to the Economic Development Partnership for Alabama (http://www.edpa.org, March 2001), "Alabama is positioned at the heart of the fastest growing region in the United States and the fourth largest economy in the world." Over the past few years, 45 percent of all job growth in the United States has been in the South, and Alabama has received more than a proportionate share of this growth. Much of this growth has been in high technology, as indicated by the following examples.

• In 1993, Mercedes-Benz selected a site in Alabama to build, for the first time in its history, a passenger auto manufacturing plant outside of Germany.
• In 1999, Honda announced it would build a facility in Lincoln to produce Odyssey minivans and engines. The new company, Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, has already begun construction on the plant.
• In 2000, Daimler Chrysler announced a $600 million expansion that will add 2,000 jobs at the Tuscaloosa County facility.
• In 2001, Toyota selected Huntsville for its newest engine plant in North America. The 300,000-square-foot plant will machine and assemble V-8 engines for Toyota's full-sized Tundra pickup truck. The Huntsville plant will be the company's first outside of Japan to manufacture V-8 engines.

Alabama's Future
 
According to the Center for Business and Economic Research (http://cber.cba.ua.edu, March 2001), Alabama's unemployment figures are expected to inch upward to nearly 5 percent in 2001, with most of the lost jobs coming from the goods-producing businesses, such as mining, construction, and manufacturing.
 
In 2000, the goods-producing businesses lost 9,000 jobs. Most of the lost jobs were low-skill jobs or jobs that required little formal or technical education but that may have required extensive training and experience, which, unfortunately, did not readily transfer to other businesses. The many recently lost textile jobs are a good example of this. The losses were from businesses closing, moving offshore, or reducing the workforce as the industry transitioned from manual labor-based production to technology-based production. Declining industries included basic steel production, industrial machinery and equipment, apparel and other textile products. The job losses were made up to a great degree by growth in the service-producing sector, such as those in government, trade, finance, real estate, transportation, communications, and utilities. Service-producing industries added 10,400 new jobs, resulting in a net growth of 1,400 jobs in Alabama in 2000.

Bringing these factors together, we have in Alabama a situation where many of our traditional jobs, such as farming, textiles, and low-tech manufacturing are going to disappear, either because of closing or moving. At the same time, we are attracting new jobs that can be generally characterized as either high-tech/high pay or low-tech/ minimum wage. From an economic development viewpoint, the most attractive companies to bring to a community are the high-tech companies. These companies bring more money into the community and spread more of the money out as wages. The wages are sufficient to allow discretionary spending by the workers. This discretionary disposable income in turn supports a number of other collateral businesses. Many of the lower technology jobs that went away, especially in manufacturing, paid a good living wage. They supported a community economy where the workers spent money on entertainment and lifestyle enhancements in addition to basic food, shelter, and transportation. Communities have a problem where these high-paying, low-technology jobs are leaving and have not been replaced, have been replaced by lower paying service industry jobs that do not require education and training and allow little discretionary income for the workers, or were replaced by high-paying jobs that require education at least through high school and often technical training or certification (jobs for which the existing workers are not qualified). In Southern Growth (Volume 1, Number 1, 2001), Michelle McGee stated, "While many Southern cities are transitioning into the Knowledge Economy with typical southern grace, others are struggling under the weight of high unemployment, low wages and shrinking industries."

The key ingredient for successful community economic development in the current knowledge-based economy is a technically capable workforce. Alabama has traditionally marketed itself as a location with willing workers and a low-wage, low-tax structure. Willing but technically unskilled workers are no longer sufficient as they are also available in other locations with even lower wage and tax structures. In Management Challenges for the 21st Century (Harper Collins, 1999), Peter Drucker noted that the money saved by low wages is not sufficient to make up for the money lost through the lower productivity of low-skilled workers. To become competitive in a global marketplace, Alabama must develop workers with technical and knowledge skills equal to those of workers in competing states and nations.

Higher energy costs, global competition, overcapacity, and a generally slowing U.S. economy suggest the outlook for 2001 is not as bright as the reality of 2000. Manufacturing in the state is expected to decline with another 11,000 jobs to be lost. The services sector is only expected to make up about 5,500 new jobs. While education is more essential than ever for good jobs, Alabama is losing more than it is retaining of its college graduates (a loss of 2.6 percent in 1998). The State of the South (http://www.mdcinc.org, March 2001) report cautioned that Alabama must create more new economy enterprises to accelerate job growth and must bring lagging rural areas with high percentages of unskilled workers into the skilled labor pool.

From a community resource development perspective, rural Alabama is where workforce development is most desperately needed. Alabama's rural communities lack a trained workforce with which to attract new economy enterprises. Alabama has a high percentage of citizens who lack a high school credential: between 25 and 35 percent, depending on the estimate. Up to half of the state's population is estimated to function at a literacy level below that expected of high school graduates. The rural areas are home to a disproportionate share of the low-literacy population.

A second area where workforce development is needed is in the retraining of workers from low-skill to high-skill jobs. The ability to retrain workers for technology-related jobs is key for communities wanting to enter the new economy. A 1999 study by the Auburn University College of Engineering found that manufacturers saw the inability to attract technically capable workers or to retrain current workers as the greatest obstacle to modernization.

A third area where workforce development is needed is in helping the schools point a higher percentage of their graduates toward technical careers. Youth who avoid technical subjects in high school may graduate with a good academic average, but they are not a good fit for the new economy jobs—many of which require math, science, computer and higher level reasoning skills.

CRD's Role

How does CRD Workforce Development fit into this picture? What can we do to help? We see our mission as working with communities to help them integrate workforce development efforts into their community and economic development efforts. We do this through programs that accomplish the following:

• Increase the capacity of local leaders, organizations, and schools to create, recruit, and retain businesses and industries
• Enable communities to identify key stakeholders and to work cooperatively to devise a plan to utilize community assets to solve workforce-related problems and to strengthen community capacity
• Strengthen the capacity of individuals to (a) secure employment, (b) reenter the workforce, (c) remain employed and/or (d) start their own cottage or small business
• Support the efforts of schools and businesses as they work together to provide career exploration opportunities for young people preparing to enter the workforce

• School-to-Career: A How-to Guide for Life Beyond High School
• What to Do? What to Do? How to Start a Business
• New Beginnings: Life After Job Loss
• The Art of Finding (and Keeping) a Job
• Workforce Preparedness: What a Community Can Do to Train and Retain Its Workforce

Partnership development is an area where we can provide assistance to communities. We help organizations and communities identify key stakeholders, facilitate meetings, and assist coalitions to work cooperatively. In this process, we help individual communities, companies, and organizations solve problems, get organized, and get going by providing assistance to help them with problem solving, planning, and organizational skills. We direct or assist in implementation of projects to improve community resources and infrastructure, especially projects concerned with creation, modification, transition, or development of community resources. Because technical training is so important, we offer assistance to train the trainer. Specifically, we support companies, communities, and organizations in their efforts to begin training programs or to optimize the effectiveness of existing training and educational programs that compliment the training program. We provide educational design expertise in the design and development of effective teaching tools and environments appropriate to the targeted audience and desired outcomes. In addition to workforce development, we can help in the growth, improvement, and revitalization of communities through providing support in strategic planning, implementation and maintenance of efforts, and evaluation of programs.

The ultimate goal of workforce development activities is to assist communities in developing their community and its economy so that it is competitive and sustainable in today's global marketplace. To reach this goal, communities, the individuals who live within, and the businesses and industries must work cooperatively.

Jacquelyn P. Robinson
Extension Community Workforce
Development Specialist
 
 

Summer  2001

Editor, J. Thomas Chesnutt