Articles

Article by Robert I. Lerman.

Efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19 have shut down much of American production, led to massive layoffs and reduced hiring, and endangered many American businesses. The scale of the lost output, revenues, and wages is unprecedented.

Replacing workers’ lost incomes through unemployment insurance (UI) and offering concessionary loans to businesses suffering extraordinary revenue losses are needed but have little impact on the declining production of goods and services.

They’re a stopgap, not the solution.

What can be done, especially for businesses and workers not lucky enough to generate production, sales, and incomes through remote operations?

It might sound counterintuitive, but now—during the COVID-19 crisis—is the best time for investing in skills.

We could reverse years of underinvestment

America hasn’t been training enough workers for a long time. The result has been a serious mismatch between job requirements and worker capabilities. Too few workers qualify for the jobs available in information technology, advanced manufacturing, logistics, and certain health fields.

Part of the problem is that many workers lack the basic math and reading skills necessary to increase productivity and earn good wages. The latest data document low and stagnant levels of literacy, numeracy, and digital problem-solving; 27 percent of employed workers were unable to solve a problem with common decimals and fractions. In the service sector, where job losses are enormous, 74 percent of employees have low numeracy skills.

We can make a dent in these long-term problems by investing in skills during today’s shutdown. Because they can’t go to work, many workers have the time to become active learners; training will not displace other production.

Using dollars from the new economic stimulus, the US government could support a program to upgrade the skills of American workers, especially those experiencing sudden unemployment. At a time when production of goods and services is dropping off dramatically, the program would increase the supply of human capital.

What would it take?

What kinds of skill development should be subsidized? How can we ensure government funds genuinely enhance skills and competencies?

1. Financial support to increase generic skills in math, reading, and language

Workers receiving UI or unemployment assistance would qualify for incentive payments to increase their generic skills and for funding to help them access necessary e-learning tools, educational videos, and mentoring. The financial incentives to workers would be performance based and aim to replace a higher share of lost earnings than the 50 percent level often provided by UI.

State agencies administering UI would invite recipients to participate in a learning program (in math, reading, digital skills, or language) in return for a supplement to their weekly payments. State and local education agencies would receive federal funding to mount online programs to raise reading and math skills.

Existing resources include many free online tools and videos from organizations such as Khan Academy, Alison, Mooc.org, Smartly, Mobi, Adobe Education Exchange, Udemy, and Grow with Google.

UI recipients receiving a 50 percent replacement rate could top up their payments to 80–85 percent of prior earnings. The relevant agency would pay the supplements monthly or biweekly so long as recipients demonstrate active participation and progress toward goals. Well-educated unemployed people would be invited to learn mentoring skills and subsequently receive payments to help workers increase their generic skills.

2. Funding for virtual apprenticeships and other in-demand occupational skills

Even in today’s shrinking economy, some employers need and are willing to hire qualified workers. Qualified workers in many health fields are in short supply, or soon will be as health systems become overwhelmed with an influx of COVID-19 patients.

The government could fund virtual apprenticeships to deliver competent workers. UI recipients, others not working, and low-wage workers could apply to participate. Federal grants from the Office of Apprenticeship would go to intermediaries and employer sponsors to mount online learning.

Virtual apprenticeships show promise for several occupations, including medical coding, medical transcription, pharmacy techs, cyber technicians, software development, and even insurance sales brokers. Competency-based occupational frameworks to ease program design and judge how well participants attain necessary skills are already available for several of these fields.

During the pandemic, training more health workers to operate and monitor ventilators would ensure hospitals have the capacity to care for infected patients. However, hospitals too taxed to take on the training could be assisted by having the government fund other health facilities that have adequate supply to train apprentices to learn the necessary skills.

When the crisis has passed, employers willing to commit to rehiring workers would receive aid for helping unemployed workers learn digital and maintenance skills that enhance their value in advanced manufacturing and other industries.  

These two initiatives can harness existing approaches to bridge the gap between now and our uncertain future. As our founding father, Benjamin Franklin, reputedly said, “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” We can start building America’s future now.

Article written by Esther Shein.

Report: Reskilling through modern apprenticeships remains important, despite the coronavirus, and companies could be making a costly mistake if they don’t prepare for when the economy returns to normal.

Globalization, economic reforms, and technological change are transforming the workplace and the types of jobs that will be offered in the future. Astute employers realize it’s critical to have access to a well-positioned pipeline of workers with 21st-century skills, according to a newly released report from the Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation.

This remains important during the COVID-19 pandemic, stressed IWSI CEO Nicholas Wyman.

“It’s very important [for] employers to take a long-range view to workforce development,” Wyman said. “Many employers want to maintain their workforces, however, are facing the reality of slowing or in some cases of forced closures with little or no revenue to pay their workers. This may see many companies forced to downsize. This could be a costly mistake.”

Modern apprenticeships can effectively re-skill workers 

The IWSI report said employers should think about a “modern apprenticeship,” to reskill America. A modern apprenticeship is an “enlightened 21st-century career pathway—a blend of classroom learning and work-based training aimed at preparing individuals of any age to meet sophisticated talent needs.”

The key to America’s economic success in the years to come will be a workforce that is agile and continuously evolving, the report said.

Wyman said the institute is urging employers to consider the importance of investing in America’s future “by continuing to give young people a go as apprentices through these challenging times.”

A modern apprenticeship is a work-based training program aimed at preparing people of any age to meet sophisticated talent needs, the report said. Such apprenticeships are available in a broad range of 21st-century industries and occupations from cybersecurity, healthcare, and data analytics to hospitality management, green sciences, engineering, and advanced manufacturing.

Key components of a modern apprenticeship, according to the report, are:

• Customized, supervised, and paid on-the-job training at reduced or no cost
• Wages graduated in step with skills gained during training
• Related classroom instruction (on or off site) to reinforce technical skills learned in the workplace
• Formalized mentoring and coaching
• Nationally recognized industry credentials or specialized technical certification earned for demonstrating the achievement of workplace competencies
• Optional college credit leading to an associate or bachelor’s degree at little to no additional expense

Modern apprenticeship programs vary in length, depending on the employer and industry, according to the report. Detailed work-based training components are determined by the employer or industry sponsors, and apprentices advance based on achieved competencies, the report said.

Think about the big picture

Wyman’s advice to employers is that “the coming weeks and months could be the best window of opportunity this decade to bring in talented people through apprenticeship programs who can be skilled up and ready when the economy turns around.”

It is important to consider the workforce expansion opportunities that will come from COVID-19, which will lead to a need for more modern apprenticeship programs, Wyman added. For example, there is likely to be an increase in health and human services employment, “and we can expect governments worldwide to reorient their thinking about the role and scope of government services,” he said. 

The coronavirus will also create more opportunities for businesses providing technology and data-driven products and services in areas like supply chain logistics, cloud IT and  automation, as businesses seek to develop operating processes and systems that can withstand any future COVID-19-like shocks, Wyman said.  

“For companies with apprentices the message is clear: Stand firm. Use this opportunity for additional training.” 

Also see

• The latest cancellations: How the coronavirus is disrupting tech conferences worldwide  (TechRepublic)
• The tech pro’s guide to video conferencing (TechRepublic download)
• Coronavirus domain names are the latest hacker trick (TechRepublic)
• Coronavirus: Critical IT policies and tools every business needs (TechRepublic Premium)
• As coronavirus spreads, here’s what’s been canceled or closed (CBS News)
• Coronavirus: Effective strategies and tools for remote work during a pandemic (ZDNet)
• How to track the coronavirus: Dashboard delivers real-time view of the deadly virus (ZDNet)
• Coronavirus and COVID-19: All your questions answered (CNET)
• Coronavirus: More must-read coverage (TechRepublic on Flipboard)
  

When Stan Best was finishing high school in the 1980s, everyone from his parents to high school guidance counselor were in agreement: he should go to college. 

“I went to Virginia Tech for about a year and a half and I left before they could throw me out. I was responsible for paying for my own way,” Best said. He wasn’t getting much out of it. Then his brother encouraged him to apply for an apprenticeship at the Newport News shipyard, where workers build aircraft carriers and submarines for the military.

“It’s very pragmatic, it’s very hands-on and practical with what the student is doing down on the waterfront,” he said.

Best trained as an electrician, went on to become a nuclear reactor test engineer and eventually returned to the apprentice school to train future shipbuilders.

“To tell somebody who is going to be a blue-collar worker that, in the future, you could end up with a six-figure job,” Best said, “it’s not what they’re normally hearing in the high schools.”

Growth in apprenticeships

The number of people doing apprenticeships in the U.S. has climbed steadily in recent years. According to the Labor Department, there were more 500,000 people obtaining skills while pulling a salary in 2018. 

Sponsored by employers, schools, unions and industry associations, apprenticeships are increasingly seen as a way to fill critical, skilled jobs in a tight labor market.

Compared to countries like Germany and Australia, though, the U.S. has an undeveloped apprenticeship system. And some people want to see more apprenticeship programs here.

Joseph Fuller, professor of management at Harvard Business School, said expanding apprenticeships in the U.S. will require a change of thinking.

“We have been preoccupied with a college-for-all mindset. And that is not bearing the fruit that we hoped,” he said.

Fuller said too many young people are finishing college with huge debt loads and working in jobs that don’t — or shouldn’t — require a college degree. He estimated there are currently three million job openings in the U.S. where apprenticeships would make more sense, many of them in banking, health care and technology.

Real experience, no debt

Tiffany Spraggins worked as an apprentice at Accenture in Chicago and now works as a software tester for the consulting firm. 

“I didn’t even know there was a possibility for me to work in this field until I applied for the apprenticeship program and got accepted,” she said. “I didn’t have to go into debt and I didn’t have to spend so much time in school because the time that I would have spent in a traditional program, I was actually on the job getting real life skills and real life experiences.”

Apprenticeship programs like Spraggins’s aren’t just helpful for job seekers, but can help employers address one of the biggest challenges in the labor market today, said Nick Wyman, who heads the nonprofit Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation: labor market mismatch.

“Employers can’t find the people with the skills they need, yet there’s a lot of educational institutions that have been churning out people,” he said, “so there’s this labor market mismatch.”

To help close that skills gap, the Trump administration is expected to finalize a regulation soon that will create a new kind of apprenticeship,
run by businesses, schools unions and other groups.

https://www.marketplace.org/2020/02/25/more-apprenticeship-seen-as-key-labor-market-problems/amp/

| By Nicholas Wyman |

The shiny new toy always catches the eye. In schools, technology and STEM equipment can be a bit like that. A school might do a lot of sweating to fundraise or secure a grant to invest in tech to skill up their students for the 21st century.

But after the unboxing, chances are teaching practices won’t change much and I’m not having a “go” at educators. It’s simply because flow-on investments must be made. That is, sending teachers to professional development on how to use the tech, then harness their professional judgment about where and when to use it. Backward map from the learning outcomes plus keep updating their knowledge. Troubleshoot when problems arise. That’s a lot for a school to try to manage on their own.

If the tech can hook students into a version of citizen science, all the better. This is real-world learning. Educators, schools and districts that are outward-looking in their work can do amazing things. I love hearing about tech being used in schools to help students see a range of career options and maybe even see their schools strike up partnerships with business and industry to help nudge those kids on their way.

Partnering with Schools to Fight Cancer

One such private-public partnership has been on my radar in Kentucky. The idea was to put more technology in classrooms while supporting cancer research efforts and build a knowledge-based workforce in the throes of the state’s declining coal industry. A not-for-profit, Dataseam, was ripe for a partnership.

“Like most small states, we struggle to address priorities in education, economic development and attracting advanced research. With Dataseam we get big wins in multiple areas for the citizens of Kentucky,” said Rocky Adkins (D) then Majority Floor Leader in 2005 when the program originally received an economic development grant.

The program’s twist was having computers sitting in K-12 classrooms statewide as the processors doing the cancer research. This virtual supercomputer, the DataseamGrid, supplies multiple times the horsepower available to researchers. As a bonus, Kentucky children benefit from the latest technology boosting education opportunities. And, the grid leverages existing state networks, facilities, and staff, shrinking the cost of supporting traditional supercomputing efforts.

“Executing the technology was the easy part,” according to Dataseam CEO Brian Gupton. “Getting school districts, universities, state, government at all levels, other companies and stakeholders to execute in concert for the common good was the hard part.”

Opening Doors to New Ways of Working

The program was initially open to rural school districts in Kentucky’s coal producing areas. With these resources, Dataseam placed thousands of classroom computers across the region where schools could only afford one or two labs with 20-30 computers each. This gave students access to current technology powerful enough to support engineering, design, media and robust research projects.

Dataseam quickly introduced technical and teacher training and industry-standard certification.

“The industry certifications, professional networking and support, along with opportunities on a national level have helped this country boy from Clay County do things I could not imagine,” said Parker Smith, CIO of Williamsburg Independent Schools.

This project also challenged school technicians responsible for maintaining equipment and networks now getting more innovative and different uses.

Dataseam also launched a Department of Labor-approved paid apprentice program for students to take advantage of industry training and work alongside the school’s certified IT staff. Students work and complete online projects across technology disciplines. This helps them determine if they want to continue on this fast track to employment after graduating high school or choose a college major. Students can also compete for college scholarships from the University of Louisville and Morehead State University.

A World of Benefits

So, what’s the data-crunching about cancer those computers do? They’re doing the grunt work for the James Graham Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville. Dr. John Trent and his team are using computational modeling to better identify compounds that could be transformed into potential cancer drugs. The program fits well with Kentucky, a state with some of the highest cancer rates in our country.

Using dedicated academic computing, Dr. Trent and his team investigated two-to-four cancer targets a year against a library of 100,000 small molecule compounds. Under the Dataseam plan, the university could investigate more than 30 targets a year against 37 million compounds with far more precision.

“When the DataseamGrid went online it truly changed the way we approached our research,” said Dr. John Trent, “We went from working to the limitations of our computing resources to thinking about how to attack hundreds more possibilities for potential life-saving therapies. It also enabled us to go after more challenging targets.”

This helped the university build one of the world’s largest potential cancer drug pipelines. The university also successfully competes for tens of millions of federal research dollars and leads clinical trials for innovative new treatments.

The Proof is in the Numbers

Over the last 15 years, Dataseam has given 26,000+ workstations to participating schools. Students have benefited from more than $2.2 million in college scholarships. Nearly 8,000 technicians and educators have been trained to use the tech. The state has the largest cohort of Apple systems engineers in the U.S.

The DataseamGrid continues to produce millions of dollars of processing power helping the cancer center create a pipeline of 20 potential cancer drugs in various stages of development with two reaching clinical trials. The university has attracted more than $57 million federally around this research.

“This partnership is tremendously beneficial for our region of Eastern Kentucky, offering practical instruction, mentoring and hands-on experience to students who would not otherwise have access. As well, these computer labs allow our universities to maximize research efforts into areas like cancer and drug discovery,” says Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers.

The partnership has many different stakeholders pulling in the same direction solving several problems. It seems a perfect match between consistent public policy and private innovation to maximize public assets.