Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Tomorrow's Employees Need More Training

Preparing a work force for the next century is the goal of higher education in Arkansas.

Dr. Ken Martin, president of Ouachita Technical College in Malvern, informed the Clark County Industrial Council what OTC is doing to prepare the coming generation's work force.

The future, he said, is already here. In Arkansas, people can communicate worldwide at the speed of light because of computers, satellites and telecommunications.

"It's easy to determine where we've been," he said, "but much harder to know where we're going and how we're going to get there."

Knowing where we're going, he said, will require everyone working together. This means the education system working hand in hand with business and industry.

In today's world, he continued, one of every five businesses which open now will be closed in three to five years according to economists.

And, he added, the knowledge base doubles every two to three years. The satellites orbiting the globe transmit enough data in two weeks to fill 19 million volummes in the Library of Congress.

Information is the most valuable commodity in today's marketplace. A high school graduate is now exposed to more information than their grandparents were in their entire life.

With the coming of the 21st Century, Martin said, 15 percent of the jobs will require employees to have at least a bachelor's degree. Only 10 percent of the jobs will be for unskilled labor. Everything else will require the workers to have post-secondary training.

"There will be as much change in the next three years," he said, "as there has been in the last three centuries, and 90 percent of the technology we'll be using hasn't been invented yet."

Mankind began forming societies based on agriculture, he informed the council. From there, man became an industrial society. Now, man is involved in a service-oriented society, with no one having any idea what's coming next.

Because of technological advances, he said, we can do more with 3 percent of the population involved in agriculture than 85 percent did in the early part of this century.

Also, he said, less than 15 percent of the work force is involved in manufacturing, and by the year 2000, 44 percent of the workers will be in data service jobs.

"Knowledge is the fastest growing and most important product. We need different skills to work in future business and industry," he said.

Education was founded on the theory students had to be in classrooms "warming seats" in order to learn. This concept, Martin said, is completely outdated.

Today's economy, he told the CCIC, is based on accessibility and communications. The equipment used, fax machines, cellular telephones, e-mail, is ballooning and changing the way business is conducted.

In addition, workers aren't staying at the same job for their entire careers. Job hopping is not only the current trend, but the wave of the future, as workers go where their skills are needed, basically hiring out to the highest bidders.

The old 9-5 workday is another thing of the past, Martin said. In fact, there are 45 million temporary workers in the U.S. today, with this number increasing rapidly.

"The old ways are gone," Dr. Martin said. "Security comes from being employable, not being employed.

"Industry wants trained work forces, and these are getting harder to find." Now, business and industry has to train and retrain workers for the jobs available.

More goods, he said, are being produced with fewer people actually doing production work.

This, Martin continued, is because of computerized technology. In 1995, there more money was spent purchasing personal computers (PCs) than televisions.

With the explosion of these PCs, he said, in 1995 the internet handled more pieces of information than the U.S. Post Office.

Also because of computers, about 70 percent of the nations in the world are accessible by the internet.

"We must be responsive to changes to succeed in the future," Martin said. "It used to be we were taught history to learn how to live in the present. Now, though, the present is being driven by the future.

"We must work together and invest in the unknown future. We need to be proactive in creating the economy we want."

This, he said, can't be done on an individual basis. Instead, being proactive will require working together closer than ever before in history.

State Rep. Percy Malone, once Dr. Martin's presentation concluded, said the CCIC needs to be smart about where the economy of the area is going.

The physical appearance of the area, he said, will make a difference in being able to attract business, industry and families to the Clark County region.

"We've got to invest in education and the community," he said.

Malone praised the Clark County Quorum Court for making a "giant step" in dealing with the tornado-damaged courthouse (see related story concerning the Clark County Courthouse on this page).

Malone also discussed the business park and access road along Interstate 30. He said there have been some negative comments about the project, but people must understand this is a win-win situation for the county.

The property owners in the affected area donated a total of 40 acres for the business park and the rights of way for easements so the road could be constructed.

Once the park and road are built, he said, businesses will locate there and generate jobs while helping the county's tax base.

Peter Lawson, executive director of the CCIC, reminded the members of the industry lunch at Bowen's Restaurant Wednesday, May 28. Del Boyette, president of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, will be the featured speaker.