CLICK VIDEO above ....to listen to discussions on how jobs will be created in today's setting.
While economic recovery is well underway in the United States, the unemployment rate is hanging stubbornly around nine percent, and the current upturn is projected to take longer than any previous rebound to restore employment to prerecession levels.
In this interactive video, a panel of experts including Carl Camden, CEO of Kelly Services; Andy Stern, former head of the Service Employees International Union; and Laura Tyson, former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, discuss and debate McKinsey research on “jobless” recovery and approaches to solving the country’s long-term jobs challenge.
The notion that USA could stand by itself to recover from this recession is a unique story. Is the country uniquely ready to go move forward? Do we have the skill sets and training of workforce available to meet the challenge. What will you do? What skillsets do you need to be prepared for the new jobs ahead?
How should the United States respond?
Public policy, private-sector shortsightedness, offshored manufacturing, unfair foreign subsidies, or any combination of these can all be blamed for the warning signs above. Whatever the cause, the United States faces a future in which the key elements of economic leadership are moving abroad. Action is imperative. Revitalizing US innovation and growth will require a national commitment in which the public and private sectors work together. Our research suggests a number of steps to start changing the trends.
1. Clear the way for the cutting-edge industrial technologies of the future
- To meet this goal, policy makers must ramp up public-sector procurement targets and set standards for next-generation technologies. Examples of the necessary policies include (1) clean power, through national standards for renewable energy; (2) transport, through mandated improvements in the fuel efficiency of automobiles; and (3) advanced composites, through Department of Defense procurement and airplane-efficiency standards.
The private sector will have to ease its paranoia about intellectual property and collaboration. US leadership in semiconductors was in part enabled by projects such as Sematech, an industry consortium to share R&D. Other advanced industries have not followed suit; the number of such partnerships outside the IT sector has stagnated.
2. Rebuild infrastructure
Part of this national strategy calls for infrastructure upgrades to support US production and engineering and to cut through well-meaning but burdensome red tape and regulations that add costs and time to construction. The necessary actions include the following:
Fast track the approval process and standards setting for selected high-priority technology areas (for example, accelerated LED-bulb-technology review, clarification of unconventional gas and wastewater standards).
Create manufacturing-development zones with fast-track site approval.
Develop investment incentives—for example, by allowing the tax-free repatriation of capital to finance US investment, thus tying R&D tax credits to US production.
Emphasize efforts to build “smart infrastructure,” such as fiber-optic cable.
To help public policy coalesce and support these initiatives for infrastructure and production upgrades, private-sector leaders must work together to communicate a comprehensive social value proposition—for example, energy efficiency, reduced pollution, and an improved traffic flow—not just jobs.
3. Attract and retain talent
After foreign students study at US universities, the country pushes them away with restrictive H1-B3 policies. Later they work for (or start up) future competitors while US companies struggle with an aging engineering workforce. The necessary moves include the following:
Streamline green card application processes and increase the number of H1-B visas—now capped at 65,000 but in 2003 as high as 195,000.
Expand efforts such as the US Department of Labor’s High Growth Job Training Initiative, which targets 14 key sectors for investments in workforce development.4
Renew private-sector efforts to train, develop, and retain current engineers.
4. Reenergize the entrepreneurial spirit in large US companies
The rapid expansion of small, inventive companies that grow up to become large ones innovating at scale is one of the hallmarks of US leadership. The country should continue to encourage this model, and more executives of large companies should embrace it. Many of our largest, most successful industrial clients are far too wary of long-term investments, which they often measure with short-term financial-performance metrics. Executives must reshape Wall Street’s quarter-to-quarter mentality and help these companies make the same kinds of bold but prudent decisions that made them great in the past.
We are confident that the United States can realize its innovation and growth potential. Its natural advantages are undeniable. But other countries are building up cutting-edge technology, demand, talent, and entrepreneurism, while the United States seems to be in retreat. The public and private sectors must work together to reverse that trend.
Have we spent enough of our resources GDP and discretionary budget to train our children? our workforce? Are we really serious on educating our people to meet today;s challenge? Do we have a policy to train, educate our undergraduate students?
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