
DATE: Sunday, October 5, 1997               TAG: 9710020716

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: DECISION '97

SOURCE: BY HOLLY A. HEYSER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  220 lines

IN VIRGINIA, WELL-TRAINED WORKERS ARE IN SHORT SUPPLY

Terrance Robinson spent a year testing chainsaws and weed-whackers for Stihl Inc. in Virginia Beach. It was a temporary job - $8.11 an hour, no benefits, scarcely what he needed to support his wife and two children.

He needed better work, but he wasn't qualified for much more than he had. His wife couldn't work because she was ill, so he couldn't exactly quit his temp job and go back to school. Instead, he quit Virginia last month and moved back home to Ohio.

Funny thing is, unemployment is so low in Virginia right now that some companies are having a hard time filling well-paying jobs.

But that's what makes Robinson's story the definitive economic-development parable of the late 1990s. Virginia isn't dying for jobs -- it's screaming for a well-trained workforce.

Focusing on the right priorities?

Not long after Robinson scanned job opportunities for the last time at the Virginia Employment Commission office down the street from Stihl, Republican gubernatorial candidate James S. Gilmore III announced his pledge to create 250,000 new jobs if elected.

The same day, Democratic rival Donald S. Beyer Jr. also addressed the Virginia Economic Developers Association Conference in Charlottesville and said he will create at least that many new jobs if he is elected.

They weren't saying much.

Virginia is likely to gain 250,000 more jobs in four years on the momentum of the current economy alone, said Ross DeVol, senior vice president of WEFA, a Philadelphia-based jobs forecasting firm.

``You could almost get there blindfolded,'' he said.

The jobs pledge, though, is just the easy-to-digest soundbite from each candidate's economic development plan. Behind each is a more detailed proposal.

And while those proposals are filled with vague promises to ``ensure programs exist'' and eliminate certain business taxes ``when and if there's a way,'' each at least touches on what economists agree are the key issues:

Maintaining Virginia's successful efforts to recruit new industries and keep existing ones.

Improving transportation systems to make it easier for workers to get to their jobs and companies to transport their products.

And most important of all, reshaping higher education to serve an economy where 12 or 16 years of school is no longer enough - ongoing training is the key.

The state of the state's economy

It may not have done Terrance Robinson much good, but by conventional measures, Virginia's economy is in excellent shape. Consider the figures:

Unemployment is around 4 percent statewide and closer to 2 percent in areas such as Charlottesville and Northern Virginia. (The Federal Reserve considers 5 percent full employment, and 2 percent a labor shortage.)

The state is adding 60,000 to 70,000 jobs a year, about half of which are high-tech.

Employers estimate at least 18,000 tech jobs in Northern Virginia and 2,000 in Hampton Roads are vacant because there aren't enough adequately trained workers for them.

The average pay for high-tech jobs in Virginia last year was $46,403. For all other jobs, it was $25,624.

Virginia is emerging as a high-tech leader. Northern Virginia has the fifth-highest concentration of high-tech jobs in the nation. Hampton Roads has the 15th fastest growing high-tech job market in the nation. This high-tech explosion is driving what businesses consider the No. 1 economic development need in Virginia: Workforce education and training.

``The jobs are here,'' said Bob Templin, president of Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon. ``The challenge is can we meet the demand for workers?''

Lifelong learning required

Part of the problem is whether Virginia is churning out enough workers qualified for these jobs.

Templin said that if you took everyone who graduated from Virginia colleges and universities with degrees in engineering and computer science last year and put them to work just in Northern Virginia, they would satisfy the need for qualified workers for only two months.

But simply getting them through college or initial training programs isn't enough, he said. Technology changes so rapidly that workers must constantly retrain themselves to keep up with it and stay qualified.

In high-performance manufacturing, he said, competitiveness requires introducing innovations rapidly. ``In the semiconductor industry, what's being sold today isn't even being manufactured anymore,'' he said.

``Anybody who's not a continuous learner cannot survive in this environment,'' Templin said. ``High school is no longer a minimum level of entry. There's some question whether high school is a minimum level of public education.''

Jobs are changing

Even people who choose traditionally tech-free careers won't be able to escape technology's demands for long.

Take Oscar Richardson's businesses, Colonial Tree Care and Signature Landscapes in Chesapeake.

In a workplace where the sky is its ceiling, computers have joined weed-whackers and chainsaws in the toolbox.

Richardson's salesmen use hand-held Newton computers to sketch out diagrams of work that needs to be done and produce bids they can print from their trucks on the spot.

Back at the office, his staff downloads that information from the Newtons, using it to start billing files, track the work, produce mailing labels and even kick out Christmas cards.

``There's always going to be a need for people who can do the manual end of things,'' Richardson said.

But for some businesses, it's tough to get people to fill those jobs.

Cynthia Shelor, for example, runs John T. Morgan Roofing and Sheet Metal in Roanoke, and she says she has a heck of a time filling positions that pay $7 to $13 an hour.

Those are jobs perhaps better suited for people who aren't supporting families. For people like Terrance Robinson - the temporary chainsaw tester in Virginia Beach - it's not enough to raise a family.

A strategy for better education

There is no single answer to Virginia's complex economic development needs.

Last week, though, the Virginia Business Higher Education Council took a stab at the workforce development problem, releasing its ``Virginia First 2000'' report.

``Virginia First'' outlines a strategy for strengthening higher education from community colleges to top universities at a cost of $910 million over the next two years.

The proposal's workforce components included:

Tripling the number of 2- and 4-year college graduates in engineering, computer science and related technical fields within five years.

Guaranteeing that all graduates of degree programs are technologically literate.

Using the community college system as a one-stop shop for workforce training programs.

And providing ``significant'' state support for workforce development programs and courses, which are not subsidized by the state like degree-related courses.

Templin said Virginia could address some workforce development needs by retooling existing programs.

``Does psychology need four times the number of graduates that we have coming out of computer science and engineering?'' he said. He wasn't trying to diminish the importance of psychology, but, he said, ``We do have to ask whether the mismatch is appropriate to the situation we're facing.''

And in some cases, the work has begun.

Community colleges have dived in, offering worker training programs for corporations that need better-skilled employees and a state that needs to move welfare recipients to work.

Hampton resident David Carmichael teaches some of those courses for Thomas Nelson Community College in Newport News, helping people with reading, math, basic computer skills and stress management.

The publicly funded welfare-to-work classes are a particularly good investment on the state's part, he said. ``There's no way that can have a lousy effect on the economy. And they're doing it well.''

He says he's getting good feedback about the programs from his former students.

Community colleges also have begun pushing the state to pay a share of ``noncredit'' instruction.

Noncredit instruction is what most businesses request for employee training programs, while credit instruction is what students take to earn degrees.

As an incentive for job creation, the state pays training costs for some businesses relocating to Virginia or expanding here, but not for existing businesses trying to keep their existing employees adequately trained.

For those companies, it's up to the company or the employee to pay the bill.

At Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, that ranges from $47.65 to $100 per unit, whatever it costs to provide the class, said Mark Emick, assistant to the college's president.

Credit courses, in comparison, all cost $47.65 per unit because they are state-subsidized. (One unit equals about 15 hours of class time. Most classes are three units.)

Emick said business isn't asking for a free ride. Most employers - and employees, for that matter - that he talks to expect to pay some share of the cost, he said.

How the candidates' ideas fit needs

The economic development plans of Beyer and Gilmore both touch on these areas, but neither does so as comprehensively as business leaders want.

``Everyone wants to talk about the issues, and I haven't seen any substance on what's been said,'' said John T. ``Til'' Hazel, founder of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council, the group that released the ``Virginia First'' higher education report last week.

The group's members have supported both candidates for governor, giving (as individuals) $147,000 to Gilmore's campaign and $106,000 to Beyer's.

Certainly, neither candidate has embraced the idea of increasing education spending $910 million over two years, as Hazel's group recommends. Both are focusing more on personal property tax cuts that would sacrifice $808 million to $1 billion in personal property tax revenue over the next four years.

Here's what they say about workforce development:

Beyer proposes improving ties between schools and high-tech companies, promoting technological literacy for all Virginians, developing targeted worker retraining programs at community colleges and putting more computers in classrooms.

Gilmore proposes expanding worker training efforts for small businesses, using Virginia's 23 community colleges to beef up training for technology jobs and spending $25 million over four years to establish workforce training centers.

And both claim credit for a 30 percent tax credit for noncredit employment training.

``I believe the candidates are aware of the necessity of workforce development,'' said Heywood Fralin, CEO of Medical Facilities of America Inc. in Roanoke.

``The question,'' he said, ``is the commitment to the funding.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo illustration by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The

Virginian-Pilot

Graphic

Color photos

WHOM WILL YOU HIRE?

BEYER

GILMORE

How will the next governor help to ensure that workers receive the

right training for the right jobs to meet the needs of an

ever-changing marketplace? How can more minorities participate in

the business environment? And how will welfare reform and a possible

economic downturn effect the job market? Gubernatorial candidates