The Global Talent Showdown

Edward E. Gordon, president of Imperial Consulting Corporation and author of "Winning the Global Talent Showdown: How Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline", gave a persuasive presentation during lunch about 21st century high skills talent development imperatives.

Gordon spoke about the STEM shortage that is beginning to hurt our economy and other economies around the world. During his presentation, Gordon explained that our economic future depends on the actions we take to reinvent the U.S. education-to-employment system over the next decade because in its current form it will not support an advanced tech economy.

“The problem is here right now, it’s burning real bright and it’s going to get Supernova in the next decade,” noted Gordon.

While 62 percent of jobs today require a strong high school liberal arts background and some type of college degree, this will jump to 74 percent by 2020. There will be 123 million vacant jobs, but only 43 million qualified persons to fill them -- partly because on average only 70 percent of children graduate high school today.

According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, 52 percent of Hispanic students, 56 percent of African American students, 57 percent of Native American students graduate, and 78 percent of white students graduate from high school.

“We keep raising the education bar in the workplace and no one is paying attention,” noted Gordon. “The generation that’s retiring is more educated than the generation that follows.”

In addition to having an unqualified workforce, we also have problems with loss of talent. The globalization paradox is a worldwide problem and in the future, we’re not going to be able to import the talent or export the goods, Gordon said.

“These are not engineering issues per say, or education issues per say, they are cultural in nature,” said Gordon. “Engineers from other countries are returning home because they can make more money there, they can set up business there, and they can be with their families there.”

There are also issues with outsourcing and foreign direct investment exporting low- and high-skill jobs.

What is the solution to these problems? According to Gordon, the U.S. needs to adopt a more sustainable long-term business culture and rebuild the STEM pipeline.

“IEEE has a civic and moral responsibility in every community in this country to work through community-based organizations to reinvent the system,” he said.

Community-based organizations and non-government organizations are being organized through business-education partnerships and the participation of chambers of commerce, unions, parent organizations, workforce boards, economic development commissions, professional or trade associations, and other community activists. The long-term goals of these organizations are to ultimately change their state education/training mandates so that schools will offer education programs for a knowledge economy and businesses will see lifelong employee training and education as another essential component of just “doing business.”

We must turn our system and culture around to address the long-term challenges associated with a STEM-based knowledge economy designed to support technology and job growth.

“You have to know when to hold them and you have to know when the fold them,” Gordon said during his presentation.

Will the U.S. make the sacrifices needed in the short-term so that our country advances and wins the global talent showdown?

For more information, read Ed Gordon’s article in IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer entitled “The Technology Paradox: A Digital Economy Without a STEM Workforce?” http://www.todaysengineer.org/2009/Mar/STEM.asp