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Workforce development missing link in economic development chain
State spends money to lure companies, but offers few solutions for worker training
By Matthew French
Staff Writer
Attracting businesses to the Palmetto State has been the state’s top priority. However, some say the state needs to concentrate on providing a qualified workforce first.
“Historically, the public sector has done a poor job promoting workforce development,” says Kevin Kunkel, vice president of Innovative Workforce Solutions Inc. “We need to have a qualified pool of people with the appropriate skills to fit the positions we have now and will have in the future.”
South Carolina typically ranks at the bottom of the scale in terms of high school graduation rates, and that statistic plays directly into the development of a future workforce. A recent graduation rates report issued in February by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research looked at statistical data from 1991 through 2002 and determined South Carolina had the lowest high school graduation rate during that span at 53%, nearly 20% below the national average for the same period.
“We have basic skill deficiencies in South Carolina,” says Kal Kunkel, Kevin Kunkel’s brother and partner at Innovative Workforce Solutions. “People lack basic skills, soft skills, and they lack technical skills. In short, they lack education.”
Keeping students in school
Training a workforce often falls to local technical schools such as Trident Technical College. To help pay for the training, Trident Technical College relies on grant money from the Carl D. Perkins Act, which designates federal monies for use in vocational and technical education. While the vast majority goes to elementary and high school education, the state’s 16 technical colleges also compete for grant money.
“We use the money as a student retention tool to keep the students in school and find jobs in their program of study,” says Claire O’Neill, director of Project Assist with Trident. “We provide services such as counseling and tutoring to economically disadvantaged students who show academic success. We also provide books and transportation, as well as child care and financial support for learning assistance.”
Project Assist targets programs in mechanical, civil, electric and environmental engineering, machine tooling, automotive and aircraft maintenance, computer and telecommunications, as well as various other industrial technologies, O’Neill says.
The school is also able to purchase equipment for various technical and vocational programs with the Perkins money, something many federal grants restrict, according to Carrie Thompson, the college’s grants administrator.
Paid solutions
It can also cost companies to find a competent workforce. If a company can afford it, several organizations offer workforce testing and screening procedures for potential candidates.
One type of testing procedure is WorkKeys, an evaluation tool developed by American College Testing out of Iowa City, Iowa. ACT also developed the ACT test as well as the standardized tests for engineering and nursing certification. With WorkKeys, a certified profiler visits a company, and, for a fee of about $1,600, profiles a position to determine what skills an employee must possess to fill that role.
“However, (WorkKeys) does not fit every employer’s needs,” says Kevin Kunkel, himself a licensed WorkKeys profiler. “Large employers are more able to afford this assessment tool than are medium-to-smaller employers. We must also consider the needs of the medium-to-smaller employers as well; they make up the majority of employers in South Carolina.”
Would-be employees usually pay to take the WorkKeys test, Kunkel says. Each test costs between $10 and $15, so a person who has to take a reading comprehension, math comprehension and basic problem-solving test would have to pay for all three.
Regional initiatives to help consolidate workforce development are also an option, but they, too, come with a price. The Trident Workforce Investment Board established the Trident One Stop Career System in North Charleston in 1998 upon the recommendation of a communitywide task force formed to investigate the feasibility of a one-stop center. Since opening the Trident One Stop Career Center, the Workforce Investment Board has opened satellite centers throughout the tri-county area.
The One Stop system offers training and assessment tools to help the unemployed sharpen skills needed for employment while helping employers find qualified workers.
“Anyone can come in and take a self-assessment of their skills and, if they are deficient in anything, can take a software tutorial to brush up,” says Bernard Chisolm, manager of the One-Stop center in North Charleston. “Using the Workforce Investment Act, if the lack of a particular skill is a barrier, we could fund that person to go to a local institution such as Trident Technical College to get the training. Once they get the skill they need, we assist them in job placement and work with the person for up to a year to make sure the company has the individual who they need with the right business skills.”
The One Stop system also looks out for the small businesses in the area. “We are looking at ways to minimize or remove the costs to the small businesses, and it’s looking good,” says Bernard Chisolm, manager of the One-Stop center in North Charleston. “But we also help small businesses interested in holding career and job fairs at no cost to them by providing space and advertising about the event.”
Attracting business No. 1 priority
But the problem remains that it will be difficult to attract new businesses unless the state addresses the worker shortage.
Gov. Mark Sanford, in an open letter to a company that recently announced it would establish a distribution center in Berkeley County, says “contributing to economic growth,” attracting new companies and job creation are the administration’s top priorities.
“The state is undoubtedly spending money on growing existing businesses and bringing new companies here,” Kevin Kunkel says. “But there seems to be a disconnect when it comes to workforce testing and training. The best service the state can provide would be free testing to get the unemployed placed. And, if they’re not appropriate for placement, the testing will tell us what training is needed.”
While optimism surrounds the region after landing the Vought Aircraft plant in North Charleston, Kal Kunkel says the workforce supply is not available to meet the demand.
“The supply isn’t here today, and it won’t be tomorrow,” he says. “But unless the state steps in and starts shouldering some of the workforce-training load, the supply won’t be here in a month or a year or two years, either.”
State-funded options
The state does offer training services for incoming companies through the Center for Accelerated Technology Training, which offers taxpayer-paid recruiting, screening, testing and training for companies looking to move to the Palmetto State.
“We give the employees of these companies the exact skills they need,” says Chuck Maury, the Charleston area director of CATT. “For example, math is a very big subject, so we won’t teach ‘math.’ But we will teach the specific math skills an employee would need for a specific job. If a company wants us to teach somebody A, B, C and D, we’ll do that.
“We won’t teach physics, but we may teach physics that will be used in a specific job in a specific plant,” he says. “We’ll teach them enough that they can get in the door with confidence and be productive. They won’t be experts, however.”
Vought is taking advantage of the center’s services to fill its 645 positions for which the company will start hiring in the third quarter of this year.
Maury says the center will take candidates who have little knowledge about a particular subject and bring them through an introductory phase.
“The company takes over from there and helps the employee become an expert,” he says.
The training center requires that the jobs projected by the companies must be permanent, must pay a competitive wage for the area and the benefits package must include health insurance. The numbers of jobs created must also be sufficient enough to allow CATT to provide training in a cost-effective manner.
“How we determine cost effectiveness is based on the client, their capital investment, the number of jobs they’re going to add and the level of technology in the company,” Maury says. “We aren’t going to spend $1,000 for someone who will create $10 in income. We want a return on our investment in 18 to 20 months in the form of tax revenue.”
Matthew French is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at mfrench@crbj.com.
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