Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/73199
MSP 6,000 workers from Poland to Scandinavia as part of an industrial program. We provided skills training and basic language development. We got good government support, but it would not have been possible without the government clearing some barriers. In EMEA, without worker mobility, moving workers from high unemployment to low unemployment economies or in economies like the U.S.A. without some worker retraining, you will have large talent gaps." The Adecco program did enjoy success with this public/private partnership to accomplish training and mobility. The Training Imperative Demographics and mobility, and immigration policy play a vital role in the long-term planning of the workforce. As the chart above shows, the United States, long maligned for slowing growth, is shown as the "winner" of the young worker marathon—if it can wait 40 years for good news. This is largely due to being a historically friendly economy for immigration. Patrick Beharelle, CEO of Seaton Corporation—the parent company of Staff Management, provider of MSP and PeopleScout, a leading RPO firm—sees education and training as the economic factor lighting the path to the more competitive workforce. He points out unemployment statistics: "In the U.S., unemployment levels for college graduates are about 4 per cent, for people with high school diplomas, the rate rises to approximately 9 per cent, and for [26] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | SPRING 2012 workers without diplomas or GEDs it is more than 14 per cent. Clearly, our economy requires a skilled and educated workforce, and the lower the educational level, the less likely you will be employed. In addition, depending on your industry and training, if you did not refresh your skills, you may not have just lost your job recently—you may have lost a career. However, for the most sought-after workers, our clients need to recognise the flip side is also true. The more skilled or educated the worker the more difficult the position is to fill and retain." Beharelle cites, as the other provider executives did, the need for company-managed training programs but added a new and interesting insight: "Companies have bid up the labour costs for skilled labour by abandoning training and apprenticeship programs that were the hallmark of most businesses a few decades back. Instead, they have foccussed on luring experienced workers from competitors. For some positions there may be nowhere to go to get that first year of experience you need to start your career because everyone wants a finished product." Even in professions one might not expect—like big rig long-haul truck drivers—there is a talent shortage. There is a barrier to entry, as few companies now train that first year since all companies recruit from each other in the same limited talent pool. As a result of these market mechanisms and other trends, hard-to-fill jobs get harder to fill as even educated workers available to be re-educated are not getting that opportunity.