A new report from the Managing the Future of Work Project at the Harvard Business School found that many people training and applying for jobs remain ill-equipped to enter the workforce. Report co-author, Manjari Raman, said to NPR:
"Businesses thought it's enough to sit in advisory councils at the local community college. Very often the people on those councils are retired small business owners. You're not really seeing engagement from large employers … going to a community college and saying, ‘Look, I need about 50 or 60 or maybe 500 people to come and work for me. Here is the kind of workforce readiness I need. This is what I need in the curriculum.'"
The report says that communication is lacking between employers and community colleges. The report states that critical middle-skills positions are unfilled resulting in revenues are lost, and customers are dissatisfied. At the same time, some students come out of the community college system only to find that they are unemployable in their field of study or at a living wage. Employers do not find them “workforce ready” and capable of carrying out the more sophisticated technology-promoted tasks associated with middle-skills positions.
The report is available to read and download freely.
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