More Partnerships Between Colleges and Industry Could Produce a Better-Prepared Work Force

Despite years of talk, the higher-education and industry sectors of the United States still don’t collaborate enough to ensure that students are adequately prepared for jobs. And the mismatch between what employers expect and what students learn in college or vocational schools could have dire consequences for the nation’s economy, according to several speakers at the New Work Era Summit hosted here by The Atlantic.

To achieve what is considered full employment—a 5-percent unemployment rate—in 2020, the economy would have to add 21 million jobs. Participants in the summit, which included college and business executives, said that employers increasingly report that they have trouble filling some positions because they cannot find qualified applicants.

The event on Tuesday coincided with the release of a report called “An Economy That Works: Job Creation and America’s Future” by McKinsey and Company, a consulting firm. The report found that the U.S. labor force will grow steadily, reaching 170 million by 2020, but that “too few students will obtain college degrees, too many will have no more than a high-school diploma, and the number of Americans without even a high-school diploma will rise.”

In this economy, even highly skilled workers struggle to make themselves marketable as companies hold off on filling positions, said Jeff Joerres, president of ManpowerGroup, a job-placement service. He said companies have become accustomed to operating with fewer employees.

“They can take their time hiring,” he said. “They don’t have to compromise because they are not in a hurry to fill a job.”

A partnership between Snap-on Inc., which makes hand and power tools, and several technical colleges was presented as a model for bridging the skills gap. The company provides institutions with the standards that students must meet to work at Snap-on, which the colleges incorporate into the curriculum.

While creating such partnerships is crucial, so is making sure that technical education becomes just as important as other forms of higher education, said Nick Pinchuk, chairman and chief executive at Snap-on.

He said manufacturing has a public-relations problem in the United States; people don’t give the industry the respect it deserves. He argued that this perception would change if technical education was made more of a priority.

“There needs to be a national push,” he said, “for technical education and businesses need to partner with colleges to make it work.”