Chamber outlines challenges that lead to ‘Indiana’s Leaking Talent Pipeline’
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
The Indiana Chamber of Commerce says the most significant challenges facing the state include improving K-12 outcomes for students of all races and income levels while also elevating postsecondary attainment levels for Indiana’s adult workforce. The chamber on Tuesday released a white paper, “Indiana’s Leaking Talent Pipeline,” that focuses on how the state can work to achieve those goals.
President and CEO Kevin Brinegar says the white paper has been presented to members of the Indiana General Assembly, Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office and the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet over the last several months to drive attention to the challenges.
During a virtual press briefing, Brinegar and Jason Bearce, vice president of education and workforce with the chamber, talked about how Indiana got to this point.
“You really have to go back a long way and realize the prior nature of our state’s economy, which was agriculture and manufacturing,” said Brinegar. “Those areas were did not require as much education as they did a strong back and a willingness to come to work everyday, so we were kind of behind the curve to begin with, and we just haven’t caught up.”
Brinegar says Indiana’s deficiencies in education and the workforce has become more evidence as the world has moved to a more knowledge-based or talent-driven economy.
Among the key statistics in the white paper, just over half of Hoosiers aged 20 to 65 with only a high school diploma are employed, while about 60% of Hoosiers with no high school diploma are not in the workforce at all.
“We first should concentrate our policy focus and state resources on improving the outcomes and skills of those at the bottom end of the educational attainment scale. That’s one of the very best ways to improve our overall workforce participation rate and fill the open jobs we have,” Brinegar said.
The chamber says the education challenges start with kids at the earliest age. Less than half of all early learning capacity in Indiana qualifies as “high quality,” while more than 75% of Indiana counties have less than 25% of the high-quality seats needed to serve kids in their community, according to the white paper.
The report also notes the median of just over $25,000 for pre-K teachers and $20,000 for childcare workers being a challenge as well.
The chamber recommends requiring high school students to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in order to graduate, as well as automatically enrolling eligible students in the state’s 21st Century Scholars program, which provides free college tuition for low-income students.
“That participation level is shockingly low (less than 40%) because students don’t know about it or have the support to apply,” said Brinegar. “What needs to happen is for every qualified student to be made aware and automatically enrolled.”
Bearce says the chamber is also supporting targeted financial incentives to promote employer investment in work-based learning and employee training that results in industry-recognized credentials.
He says Indiana employers currently provide a large amount of training, much of which doesn’t result in any sort of recognized credential.
“It doesn’t provide individual currency in the labor market. But beyond that, it also doesn’t show up in our education attainment rankings,” said Bearce. “Increasingly, [companies are] looking at what’s a state or metro area’s education attainment level, what specific credentials do they have that align with their business needs, and that all too often is the deciding factor on where they choose to relocate or expand their businesses.”
The chamber says the steps outlined in the white paper are highly aligned with a recent report from the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet, which provided 30 recommendations to improve Indiana’s workforce challenges and declining higher education rates.
Bearce says the chamber has been encouraged by the response from lawmakers who have been in discussions regarding the white paper over the last several months.
“Most are talking about childcare, talent development, the need to make education and postsecondary education, particularly, more relevant,” he said. “Now, we’ve just got to take that next step and actually put our money where our mouth is and make those investments to start to turn these numbers around.”
You can connect to the full white paper by clicking here.