A panel of five education and business development officials agree the future workforce will be less college educated and more specialized in the trades.
“We need workers right now, but we also need to make sure we have the future workforce,” Brunswick Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Ralph Staffins told the panel on Friday. “What does that look like to y’all? Who are we training 15 years from now?”
Kids have been pushed hard to go to college for the past 21 or so years, said Glynn County Schools Superintendent Scott Spence. It’s led many who would excel much more in a trade to waste their time on a four-year degree.
“I don’t think the future looks like that,” Spence said. “I think it’s going to look like people get out of high school, they train in certain types of skills and they go to work. And I think they’re going to be making more than those college-educated kids.”
Lonnie Roberts, president of Coastal Pines Technical College, agreed. He said workforce shortages in the coming decades will only get worse as baby boomers retire. Automation and technological advancement will help fill the void, but in the meantime, workers need to be trained to use these tools.
“We’re going to have to continue changing and tweaking things to meet those challenges,” Roberts said.
Some things won’t change. Heavy equipment operators, truck drivers, nurses and HVAC technicians will always need people.
“What we have to do is do a better job at educating our children that these are good jobs and they’re well-paying jobs,” he continued.
That’s pretty cut-and-dry, Staffins said, but a real worry for many is that due to social media and cell phones younger generations are lacking in the soft skills — good communication, interpersonal skills, leadership, problem-solving, work ethic, time management and teamwork, to name a few.
Roberts said all courses at Coastal Pines include a work ethics grade in addition to the overall course grade. Students are taught communication, teamwork and critical thinking and assigned a work ethic score based on their performance in those areas.
In the Glynn County School System, students are given some soft skills lessons in the 7th grade and taught about the hiring process in the 12th, Spence said.
As boomers retire, Golden Isles Development Authority President and CEO Ryan Moore said business will see a noticeable shrinkage in skilled help. Some businesses are rethinking the need for bachelor’s degrees and squeaky clean criminal records.
He also urged businesses to look at hiring students. The biggest obstacle people cited to him is insurance. To that, he only said that other businesses have figured it out. It is possible.
Moore also talked about the need for workforce housing. The only solutions he had for that were to build cheaper and denser housing.
“Nobody wants a high rise in their backyard, but consider supporting high-density housing in places where it fits the area,” Moore said.
Friday’s panel and luncheon was also one of Donna Davis’s first events representing the chamber’s board as chairwoman. She was appointed earlier this week.
Davis, director of marketing & business development for Oakbridge Insurance, said she looks forward to leading the board over the next year as it tackles a wide range of goals. She’s also on the board of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
“During our board retreat, we had a strategic plan and ironed out what our goals will be for the year. There are lots of initiatives we’re already in the middle of,” Davis said. “We’re hyper-focused on workforce development, housing and education initiatives, the needs of small businesses, and we are asking people to participate in a survey that will help us identify what the community says it needs.”
The chamber’s next big event is a trip to Washington, D.C. Small business leaders from Glynn County plan to travel to the nation’s capital to meet with legislators to advocate for the Golden Isles.
“I’m very thankful and honored to be chosen for this position,” Davis said. “I’m grateful to Ralph and the chamber team for their support and for my family for their support.”