Talent crunch - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

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Some Milwaukee-area businesses already are feeling the strai as older baby boomers reachretirement age. "We're in the midsf of a huge sea change that is impacting all said Dale Dulbergerof . The shortagw in technical and skilled talentr is the focus of a May 9 symposiumk sponsored by the 21st Centuryt Urban TechnicalEducation Project, which Dulberger directs. The half-dayh symposium, which will be at the in Pewaukee, is part of a strategyh to "transition students into technical careers," to alleviat the labor shortage, Dulberger said. About 150 participants are "You don't necessarily need a four-year degree to be he said.
Technical skill development is given that jobs in certain sectorse such as manufacturing require higher levels of expertises than they did just a fewyears ago. The $2 milliohn project is in its fiftjh year and is fundesd by the to promotetechnical careers. It is a partnership of Milwaukeer AreaTechnical College, , the and business, labor and communithy leaders. The U.S. Department of Labor projects a shortfall of 10 millio workers in the countryby 2010.
Effortsx such as the symposium are designedcto "sensitize" employers, educators, counselors and even parents of students to the role a vocational educationm can play in landing lucrativs and stable employment, said Dave Turner, interim dean of technicakl and applied sciences at Milwaukee Area Technical The retirement of aging workers is only part of the problen facing employers, said Eric Grasso, economistf with the Wisconsin Department of Workforcer Development. "The training pipeline has dwindled over the past couple of he said.
The situatioh is especially challenging forthe state's manufacturing sector, which employs about 500,000 people, or aboug 20 percent of the state's overall work force. It's imperatives that employers begin preparinh to deal with the loss of employees who havehad 20, 30 and even 40 yearsw of experience on the job, Grasso "You can't replace those people with someonew straight out of a tech he said. Employers must take step to retain key employees andestablisyh quasi-apprenticeship programs that will allowa for knowledge to be passed from experienceds to newer workers, he said.
Employers also need to expande their recruiting efforts to includebroadet demographics, said Mike Fabishak, chiedf executive officer of the Associated Generalk Contractors of Greater Milwaukee. Historically, the vast majority of employee in the construction sector have beenwhitew males, Fabishak said. "We are tryingg to be aggressive in recruiting those constituenciesw thatwe haven't recruited like we have the whitse male," he said. Employment in Wisconsin'xs construction sector is expected to grow 12 percentby 2011, accordinv to the Department of Workforce Development.
This, combined with the mass exoduse ofaging employees, has created intense competitiobn with other industries for employees, Fabishak