The New Maine Workforce 3: Workforce Skills and Education in Waterville and Presque Isle-Caribou

In the previous two issues of Maine Business Indicators, we explored the analysis of Maine’s workforce that the Center for Business and Economic Research and the Muskie School have undertaken over the past year. In particular, we examined recruiting trends and employment costs in the Presque Isle-Caribou and Waterville labor market areas. In this final report on the study’s initial phase, we now consider the responses from employers and employees regarding skills and training. Furthermore, we look ahead to the extension of this study statewide and to future reports emanating from it to be published in Maine Business Indicators.

As Figure 1 shows, both regions have attained higher levels of education than the state as a whole. They both have larger proportions of people boasting at least a high school degree and at least a bachelor’s degree. Waterville, almost all of whose entire workforce has attained at least a high school education, has achieved higher levels of education than has Presque Isle at the high school as well as at the college level.

The two regions differ in their levels of completed post-secondary education. The Waterville region shows a slightly higher level of earned bachelor’s degrees (17% v. 16% in the Presque Isle area) as well as post-graduate degrees (9% v. 8% in Presque Isle). On the other hand, Presque Isle has a larger proportion of people with associates degree (12% v. 10% in Waterville). The fact that both regions have a larger proportion of people over 25 who have had “some college” (22-23%) but who have not completed either associate’s or bachelor’s degrees draws attention to the fact that, in these regions and elsewhere in Maine, people undertake some post-secondary education but do not complete a degree.

Based on the household survey, people widely recognize the need to get additional education and training. Sixty-one percent of Waterville respondents and 54% of Presque Isle-Caribou respondents indicated their intention to get additional education or training within the next two years.

As Table 1 shows, age is inversely related to the likelihood of going to school within the next two years. The younger the worker, the more likely one is to consider going to school. The proportions indicating that they were somewhat or very likely to go to school are significantly higher under the age of 54. Even so, a sizable majority of the population throughout the working years are considering going back to school. Only after age 65 does the proportion planning to go to school drop to low levels.

Both employers and employees recognize the importance of education and training, but continued concern over the quality of the education system raises the question of whether employers will be able to get employees with needed skills. Given the wide array of proficiencies required in a complex economy, a broad survey of the type used here cannot render an accurate reading of the links between skills and employment. Nevertheless, employers were asked about their experience in hiring employees with adequate reading, writing, communication, analytical and mathematical, and interpersonal skills.

Employers were asked to indicate how easy or hard it was to find employees with skills appropriate to their organization. Figure 2 shows the results of this question. In both regions, employers reported that getting needed basic math and analytical skills was the hardest, with Waterville employers expressing rather greater difficulty. Employers also conveyed concern about getting employees with adequate reading capability. They were least concerned about communication skills.

Over one-third of respondents in the employer survey in Waterville, and slightly less than 20% in Presque Isle-Caribou, reported that they had to engage in some remedial training in basic skills for the newly hired workforce — a sure sign that the lack of adequate basic skills distressed employers. Of those who said that they had to do remedial training, over half in each area reported that 75% or more of the newly hired workers needed training. This finding indicates that the education and training programs do not yet match the needs of employers. At the same time, however, this conclusion should not be overstated, since the term “basic skills” could include not only such abilities as reading and writing, but also job- and organization-specific skills that one would not normally expect the usual education processes to impart fully.

Employers in each region were asked about their use of education and training resources, and to rate those resources in terms of the quality and responsiveness to their organization and their employees’ needs. Table 2 shows the number of respondents who indicated that they utilized each resource and their average rating of the resources on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 was lowest and 5 highest. In both regions, the campuses of the Maine Technical College System (Northern Maine and Kennebec Valley Technical Colleges) were both used most often and received the highest ratings from employers. (Note that respondents could indicate that they used more than one of the education resources.)

While it is difficult to precisely measure the complex relationship between skills and training in the highly diverse economy that exists throughout Maine, a number of important changes have been occurring in the workplace across almost all industries. These include the increasing use of computers and the redefinition of management-labor relationships in ways which give employees more voice and responsibility in decisions about operations.

Figure 3 shows the answers in the employee survey to the question of whether the respondent used a computer at work and their self-assessment of their computer skills. This question asked the respondent to rank their computer abilities in the following manner:

• Beginner (minimum skills)
• Elementary (I can do simple input but not much more)
• Intermediate (I can use many different kinds of programs and fix most routine problems)
• Advanced (I can write my own programs)

Sixty-five percent of the employees in the Presque Isle-Caribou area and over 70% in the Waterville area said that they used computers in their primary job. Computer skills appear to be somewhat higher in the Waterville area. In that region more respondents described themselves as having intermediate skills, and slightly more as having advanced skills, while the proportions reporting beginner or elementary skills were greater in Presque Isle-Caribou. In any event, the largest proportion of respondents in both regions reported having intermediate skills on the above scale.

Increasing employee involvement in the workplace was measured by asking both employers and employees about their participation in or familiarity with three different workplace arrangements:

Total Quality Management/Continuous Quality Improvement (TQM/CQI): This approach emphasizes close attention by all employees to the needs of customers and to finding ways to improve organizational and/or production processes.

Job Rotation and Cross-Training: Breaking the traditional mold of workplace assignments in which one person does one job continually, organizations increasingly train their workers to undertake multiple types of jobs and rotate employees through different assignments so as to increase skills and provide flexibility in the workforce.

Self-Managed Teams: Workers are organized into small groups, each having a set of assignments as well as the authority (appropriate to the type of work being done) to organize their own work schedules and duties.

Table 3 shows the results from the two surveys. A high proportion (61-76%) of employers in Presque Isle report using all three approaches, while lower proportions of employers report using them in Waterville.

The percentages differ between the two surveys because of differences in the proportion of large and small employment firms in the employee and employer surveys. For example, it appears that the household survey in Waterville found greater proportions of people reporting that they were employed in organizations with self-managed teams and cross-training/job rotation than employers reported. However, the differences between the two surveys are relatively small, except in the Presque Isle area regarding self-managed teams and to a lesser extent in the Waterville area with respect to cross-training/job rotation.

Here, significantly more employers reported using self-managed teams than employees. Again, this could be the result of differences in sample, but it may also point to differences in perceptions about the degree of responsibility actually granted to employees. If so, the finding points to the evolving nature of these types of workplace arrangements as both sides learn new roles and responsibilities.

The workforce in both regions should be considered well-educated and generally well-prepared to work in today’s complex technology-oriented workplace. Employees are actively participating in improving and managing the organizations in which they work, and they also exhibit an impressive educational ethic. They recognize that the need for continuing education, and a large proportion have or say they plan to acquire additional education.

For their part, employers make use of and give high marks to public education and training resources, particularly those of the Maine Technical College System. At the same time, employers find their new employees too often inadequately prepared in basic skills, particularly mathematics. Many employers also have to devote resources to training the newly hired in both basic and job-specific skills.

The reports on the Presque Isle- Caribou and Waterville surveys in this and the past two issues of Maine Business Indicators covered the first of a series of studies on the labor force throughout the state. Fifteen more regions will be analyzed, as shown in Table 4. As of this edition of the MBI, three more household surveys have been completed in the North Central (the third labor market area shown in Table 4), the Northern Aroostook (the fourth LMA), and the Bangor areas. The employer survey has also been mailed to employers in these regions.

In addition, the collection of a wide variety of data on workforce and related economic and demographic information is proceeding for all regions. This data, along with information from the surveys, is being made available on the World Wide Web. Users may access the detailed information by going to www.mainebusinessworks.com.

The next report of this project in Maine Business Indicators will be made in late 2000. At that time, the workforce project will have analyzed all the major urban areas plus more than half of the rest of the state. Surveys will also have been completed in areas from northern Maine to York County, and enough surveys from both employers and employees will have been completed to accurately identify statewide measures of the workforce characteristics we have been studying. These statewide figures will be the focus of that MBI issue.

Return to MBI homepage