State Seeks Database to Match Jobs to People Getting Unemployment

Wow! Is this going to be a political football or a great boom for employers?
Either way it will be interesting to watch what happens.Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

State seeks database to match jobs to people getting unemployment

By John Schmid of the Journal Sentinel

Nov. 27, 2012
state-seeks-database-to-match-jobs-to-people-getting-unemployment

It's often called one of the leading impediments for Wisconsin's manufacturing-heavy economy: the inability to find qualified or willing job candidates for production jobs even at a time of high unemployment.
And after a decade of ceaseless industry complaints, white papers and debate, the state Department of Workforce Development on Tuesday promised to have its own answer to the problem up and running by the first quarter of 2014, at least in some rudimentary form.
The agency wants to start an online database with analytic software that will attempt to match the skills of those collecting unemployment insurance with job openings. The idea is to collect so much information on job seekers and job opportunities that the system eventually will include a predictive algorithm that will help technical schools and universities figure out what skills are expected to be in demand in a dynamic economy in time to educate a generation of workers.
The matchmaking system ideally will communicate directly with job applicants using smartphone apps, "because that's what young people are familiar with," said Jonathan Barry, deputy secretary of the state workforce agency.
Barry spoke Tuesday at a forum presented by the Milwaukee Press Club. Other panel members included the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and executives from two companies, global recruitment firm ManpowerGroup Inc. and Milwaukee-area metal fabricator GenMet Corp.
The agency's computer system is "archaic" and "inefficient," Barry said. "Right now it's a telephone- and paper-based system."
It's too early to talk about precise costs, some of which might be offset by reallocating programming time within the agency. Barry estimated that the new system could cost $15 million to $16 million in federal taxpayer funds.

The problem goes by many names. Some call it a skills mismatch or jobs disconnect. "It seems like a paradox," given how many remain unemployed, said Manpower vice president Melanie Holmes.
Barry said his agency is just getting started. It created project teams to make plans to build the system, which is still in the concept phase. It doesn't yet have a name. "We haven't called it anything," Barry said.
The agency recently began requesting cost proposals from different software vendors. A timeline of 2014 is "ambitious," he said.
Gov. Scott Walker would be up for re-election in 2014.

The system might also include "carrots and sticks," Barry said. If users are collecting unemployment insurance but don't comply with the terms of the job-search program, their unemployment check might be delayed, he said.

Another challenge is the bureaucratic culture at Workforce Development, which has six divisions and 1,600 employees meant to oversee training and re-employment efforts. Commenting on the agency, Barry said: "It's siloed. It's tough to change. It's a challenge for all of us in government to meet the kind of rapid change we've seen in workforce and society."

And the search for qualified talent in a fast-changing economy is global, Holmes said. Half of all the employers who respond to Manpower's surveys cite the struggle to fill positions. Causes are as numerous and complex as any other major social issue: They can include access to transportation, child care or the inability to develop "soft skills" that can make or break chances of employment, she said.
But in Wisconsin, the issue is often the bane of machine shops, factories, welders and metal fabricators.
Mary Isbister, president of Mequon-based GenMet, said few young people appear interested in working in manufacturing, echoing sentiments heard often in the Midwest manufacturing economy, where too often factory work is stigmatized as "dumb, dirty and dangerous."

In fact, it's neither dumb nor dirty, she and others said. The opposite is the problem: Factory work is highly automated and needs math, computer and blueprint-reading skills, she said. "We are a paperless shop. We use computers."
Lost in contemporary culture is the pride in making things, she said. Her 75-person company specializes in metal fabrication, turning sheets of steel into bumpers, hoods or the big letters on a McDonald's restaurant, she said.
"This is the biggest thing controlling the growth of my business," she said. "I could have doubled my business last year - doubled - if I could have found the right people."