Here's a board's eye view of our workforce system. It provides you good view on why we have a skills shortage and how we can address these imbalances.

1. K through 12
Dependency
Cycle
Career
Entry
level
Working
poor
$10.00
per hour
2Years of
College
Certifications
4Years of
College
Pre-K
In urban districts, as
many as 60% of young
people drop out of
school. Drop-outs tend
to end up in a
dependency cycle.
Between 40% and 50% of graduates from high school
have weak skills and no career plan.They enter entry
level jobs. If they get stuck, they become the working
poor.
We have too few young people going on to post-secondary training.
This shortage will only get worse as the Baby Boom retires.We have
shortages in a wide range of occupations from teachers and nurses to
auto techs and long haul truckers.
Summary: We are producing too many underskilled
people. In any regional economy, 70% to 80% of the
jobs are career jobs, paying above $10 per hour.Yet, we
are producing over 50% of young people without the
skills for these jobs.
Worse still, the working poor have no easy way to
upgrade their skills.
Source: Ed Morrison, Copyright 2014 distributed through a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution ShareAlike license. edmorrison@purdue.edu
Workforce Development in a Nutshell
The cost of moving people
from dependency to the
working poor is enormous.
The cost of moving people
from working poor to
careers is comparatively
small.