By Matthew French
Staff Writer

Jim Young sees it everyday; people unprepared for the reading, writing and mathematical demands of the workplace.

To address this problem, his and other area companies have lowered their qualification standards to ensure they have a full roster of employees, says Young, a human resources manager at Mikasa, which has a 500,000-square-foot distribution center in Charleston.

“We were facing a real dilemma and we had to change our testing procedures,” Young says. “We were offering the (General Aptitude Test Battery), which includes a combination of math, reading comprehension and dexterity, and people were having difficulty passing that. The real problem, though, was that if they didn’t pass it, they couldn’t re-test for six months.”

So Mikasa went to a different but similar test that tested math and reading skills at a basic eighth grade level, but found a number of prospective employees were still performing poorly, particularly in the math section. The company eliminated the second test and went to a basic numbers recognition test, where a set of numbers were shown and a second set followed; candidates had to decide if the two sets of numbers were the same.

South Carolina is consistently one of the worst states in the country when it comes to graduation rates and Scholastic Aptitude Test scores. The trend has been ongoing for years and doesn’t appear to be getting any better. The latest graduation rates report was issued in February by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. It 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.

Local companies say the talent pool can, at times, seem shallow as a puddle. Aptitude tests to find skilled labor are sometimes beyond the grasp of candidates, even when the tests look for simple math or reading comprehension skills.

Technically, Charleston has a statistical labor shortage, given its below state average 4.3% unemployment rate. Companies like Bosch, American LaFrance, Summerville Preferred Partners and MeadWestvaco provide a large number of jobs in the region and contribute to the area’s reputation as a good center for manufacturing.

But if the labor pool is viewed as undereducated by entities that could potentially locate in the Lowcountry, it could have an adverse impact on the number of companies looking at South Carolina as a viable option.

“The education in this state definitely effects the available workforce,” says Dottie Karst, owner of Charles Foster Staffing Co., a staffing firm in Charleston. “Our children are so unprepared to go to work it’s pathetic. It’s a nationwide problem, but I think it’s prevalent in South Carolina.”

Karst is in a good position to know. Through her company, the largest staffing and temporary agency in the area, she comes into contact with both sides of the employment fence. She says a lot of high school students who don’t have higher education as a goal often adopt the mindset that they don’t have to work if they don’t want to.

“The teachers are trying; I know they are,” she says. “But they’re often having to be parents to these students, too. I think the business community needs to be more responsible and go in and talk to these students. (The students) need to know what the expectations are going to be if they’re going to get jobs. We can’t lower our expectations any more.”

When companies are looking to relocate to the Lowcountry, or open satellite offices here, don’t think that they don’t ask about public education, Karst says. The owners and chief executives of companies have to look out for their employees’ best interests, and knowing the landscape of education in a prospective new market is key.

“I think the quality of schools in the area is definitely a factor, and I think it’s more of a factor than the public thinks,” she says. “Companies that come here do ask questions about education.”

Brett Gowans, operations manager for Road King Trailers, which last month announced it would open its first South Carolina location in St. George, agrees, but says that businesses need to take their participation a step further.

“The business community could help by reinforcing that accountability, but I think it has to be done on a scale that is effective,” Gowans says. “It will require input from the business community, religious community and government, and it would have to be a large initiative to educate kids and parents. The alternative is to not do anything.”

Road King Trailers, manufacturers of industrial and boat trailers, chose its St. George location because of the immediate availability of a facility and the history of boating and boat manufacturing in the region. Gowans says the reputation of South Carolina’s education system was not a factor in the decision.

“We’re looking for people with basic high school level skills. Part of our application process includes very basic skills including math and reading comprehension,” says Gowans, whose wife is a teacher in the state’s public school system. “None of the positions that we’re hiring for at the moment require any post high school skills. What we need, however, is accountability in schools, the same way we have accountability in business and life in general.”

Karst asserts that much of the problem manufacturers are dealing with is an attitude that they have to adapt to would-be employees, rather than the prospects adapting to the company.

“In this market, where there is a labor shortage, if a person is unemployed, it’s because they don’t have the skills necessary to get a job and they’re unwilling to get them,” she says.

“Manufacturing companies in particular are willing to train people to do their work, but they can’t find people that will adapt to them and that goes directly back to the schooling.”

Mikasa’s Young agrees, saying the work ethic has nosedived, with younger workers sometimes walking off the job with little or no notice.

“People will come in for their first week, or first day, or even first hour of work, and then just disappear,” he says. “There needs to be more of a partnership between business and academia—particularly at the middle and high school levels—to let the kids know what’s expected of them and to educate the teachers about the ‘soft skills’ we need. The students need not only the mental capacity to grasp concepts, but they have to know how to work as part of a team and they have to know that there’s a price to pay in order to afford the luxuries they want.”

Matthew French is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at mfrench@crbj.com.

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