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Manpower president expects worker shortage
1/18/2007
Manpower president expects worker shortage
Thursday, January 18, 2007
By Myron Kukla
The Grand Rapids Press
ZEELAND -- Baby boomers have been setting trends for more than four decades.
Now, as the first wave of them hit 60 years old and start retiring, they could be creating a work force shortage.
By 2010, U.S. companies will be seeing a huge drop in the labor market when as many as 10 million U.S. workers are eligible to retire, said Jonas Prising, Manpower International president for North America.
"By 2011, the population 65 and over will be growing faster than the general population, which will create a huge demand for skilled workers," Prising told Lakeshore Innovation Council members Wednesday in a discussion at the
economic development agency, Lakeshore Advantage.
Labor shortages will be especially felt in the skilled labor market for executives, managers, engineers, nurses, machinists and even sales representatives, he said.
"Worry over immigration and the need for work force diversity will likely disappear as companies try to generate new workers," said Prising, adding recruitment of educated employees outside the U.S. will likely intensify to fill the shortfall.
The problem of an aging work force is global issue for all developed nations, he said.
"It's going to be a problem from Germany to Japan," said Prising, whose company -- which employs 2.5 million people worldwide -- has started developing internal strategies to deal with the matter.
While the developing worker shortage in skilled areas will be acute in the future, that does not mean there will be jobs for all. Prising said people without college education or special skills still likely will have to compete for lower-level jobs.
Some firms already are anticipating the dilemma. Those include Metal Flow Corp. of Holland, which does metal stamping for auto parts. The firm has 175 employees.
"We're anticipating there is going to be a substantial loss of talent at the executive level and skilled-trade positions in the next five years. We have been proactive in developing management talent from within and promoting the need for young people to consider skilled trades," said Kevin Brown, Metal Flow vice president of human resources. "We go to career days at schools and visit the technical center and give them information on the jobs and the potential wages in hopes of developing a home-grown generation of skilled workers to draw on."
Holland Hospital staff recruiter Sandi Beelen already is seeing the worker crunch starting to appear for registered nurses, physical therapists and laboratory professionals.
"We know we need people to fill critical positions in all parts of the hospital in the next five to 10 years, and so we go to a lot of career fairs and do college recruiting and advertising on heath career Web sites. It's a continual process," she said.
Prising encourages companies to create partnerships with schools for special education programs, invest in worker retraining programs, develop underemployed staffers' skills and find ways to entice existing workers to prolong their careers.
"Because someone is reaching retirement age doesn't mean they have to retire," he said. "You can entice them to stay at their jobs longer, or perhaps retire and still work two or three days a week."
©2007 Grand Rapids Press
© 2007 Michigan Live. All Rights Reserved.
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