Rep. Bosma’s HB 1002 creating the Indiana Career Council seems more aspirational than prescriptive. But, it passed the House 99 – 0, so maybe it actually does more than is apparent to me.
It creates the Career Council and populates it with various government officials, the President of Ivy Tech, and a few people representing labor, education, and the life sciences industry appointed by the Governor. It sets before the Council the broad tasks of coordinating the state’s education, job skills development, and career training system, and matching education and skills with the job market.
It also mandates the development of the “Indiana Workforce Intelligence System” “to improve the effect of the state’s educational delivery system on the economic opportunities of individuals and the state’s workforce, and to guide state and local decision makers.to improve the effect of the state’s educational delivery system on the economic opportunities of individuals and the state’s workforce, and to guide state and local decision makers.” The legislation mandates certain inputs into the data system and requires that it “effectively organize, manage, break down, and analyze educational and workforce data.” The Department of Workforce Development, the Department of Education, and the Commission for Higher Education to feed data into the system.
The bill gives the Career Council until July 1, 2018, to contract for the development of the system, and, after that, gives that authority to the Governor. The Career Council is charged with administering the system once created.
Having data that matches job market demands with job market supplies is not objectionable. But, I thought this was the sort of thing that the free market was supposed to take care of. Where supply is inadequate to demand, the market provides a signal about the mismatch in the form of rising price offered for the skill set needed; creating an incentive for suppliers to develop that skill for fun and profit. In other words, if employers need certain skills, the one offering the highest compensation will get the limited supply. Meanwhile, workers wanting to make more money will start learning the skill. If it’s true that the Skills Mismatch theory of Unemployment really is more myth than truth, then this Career Council and Intelligence System is likely to be little more than a boondoggle in favor of whoever gets the contract to develop it.
What you’re saying is that I’m getting that project management degree at just the right time.
When the Democrats propose similar schemes it is called “picking winners and losers.”
When a simple solution is proposed to solve a complex problem, you know that someone has not done the homework, there’s a demagogue in the mess or another reason lurks behind the scenes.
If the the skills set matching idea was correct, then finding the right people would be like matching dominios. If they had bothered to call IU, Purdue or even the man on the street they would be told that personal characteristics such as being responsive to criticism, being open to ideas, showing up on time (hopefully without a weapon) and being willing to work are critical, and that’s not always in the transcript. People are hired and fired for other reasons than whether their skill sets match the job description. Since when do businesses hire the first guy on the scene whose skill sets match the job description?
Furthermore, let us remember that this is a right to work without pay state, a factor that will enter heavily into this little scheme. When Steve Jobs told the president that he had to go to China to find engineers because he couldn’t find any here, an engineer friend told me that there are loads of unemployed engineers who were laid off because they had “too much” experience, and would have asked for more than Jobs paid the Chinese who also have some right to work without pay traditions.
Whatever is happening behind the scenes, don’t be surprised if this is another attempt to put Indiana more in line with Mississippi.
After a long career as a “vocational” teacher, I am concerned as to the direction this will go, if it goes anywhere. As pointed out, merely trying to provide “fodder” for the business world is of concern since it does not address any number of issues as pointed out already.
I’m guessing it’s a jobs program for the various people on the Council that already have jobs.
Indian Workforce Intelligence System? At least two of those words don’t belong in there, but I’m being cynical and mean.
I’m guessing that it will be as informative and transparent as our wildly open Indiana Economic Development Corporation. What with how they open the data to us peasnts concerning how effective their economic development activities are.
But I’m being mean and cynical.
I shall make public and official the real way to remedy matters:
1) Re-re-distribute the wealth, as in wresting dollars out of the hands of the few—begun around 1981 w/the president who shall remain nameless and how unions were gutted, CEOs’ bonuses were hiked for illusory reasons, and the middle-class began to disappear.
2) Remove religion from public education, reduce student-to-teacher ratios, and provide more incetives to people wo teach.
3) Cut a significant percentage of the defense budget (like that portion for nukes and new weapons systems), and use that money for infrastructure, as in highways and bridges (for starters).
4) Legalize all drugs, and regulate and tax their sale, w/each person able to grow some pot for personal use (a la current laws for brewing and distilling for personal use).
5) Make privately-run correctional facilities illegal.
6) Ban lawmakers from entering contracts or leases greater than four years or so.
I’d put something in there about banning the New York Yankees from professional baseball, but I don’t want to engage in fantasy. (Spolier alert? That was sarcasm.)
Mark,
That makes just too much sense, and there are too much data to support your ideas. The public needs something more simplistic and much more ideological to stir them up. Actually, some of your recommendations are pretty conservative.
The last thing we need is yet more reinforcement of the wrong, obsolete, and socially harmful idea that the purpose of education, and particularly higher education, is career preparation.
But if we teach people to think, they might question an employer’s judgment and cause trouble, and then they would have to be fired and be unemployed. If you teach them to do exactly what they are told, they won’t cause trouble and will work for nothing. If they are thankful, they will continue to vote for the same people who brought them their “education” and their job. That is the ultimate purpose of the Workforce Intelligence System, after all.