Ohio’s efforts to train workers for the jobs of the future are being hampered by a lack of information about what these jobs might be.

Gov. John Kasich and members of his newly formed Executive Workforce Board admit they are frustrated by the lack of participation they are receiving from employers statewide to forecast how many workers they want to retain or hire and what kind of training they need.

That information is essential to establish “performance metrics” that would allow the the governor and his board to measure the effectiveness of the state’s nearly 90 workforce training programs scattered across 13 state agencies, said Connie Wehrkamp, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office.

The board, comprised of 25 business, government and educational leaders from across the state, has been charged with streamlining what Kasich has described as a disjointed and convoluted workforce training system. And one of the first steps is compiling a comprehensive list of the state’s future workforce needs, Wehrkamp said.

“One of the main things the (board) has been focusing on is working with the business community to forecast their job needs, two, three or four years down the road…to make sure we’re actually training people for jobs that are in demand,” Wehrkamp said.

Kasich expressed frustration with the lack of cooperation from some companies following the board’s inaugural meeting on Nov. 26 in Columbus, noting that some unnamed energy companies had so far refused to provide their “list” of needs despite repeated requests.

“A lot of us share the governor’s frustration of trying to properly forecast not only the numbers of people that (companies) are hopeful of hiring, but also what kinds of jobs and skill sets and educational backgrounds that employers are looking for in those hires,” said Phil Parker, a member of the governor’s board and president of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce.

”It’s just very difficult to really get them to give the detailed information that we need,” he said. “So part of our job responsibility is to help come up, perhaps, with as many alternative means of communicating with businesses to get the best, most accurate information we can get.”

Fiscal cliff

But local business owners and labor market experts say no matter how open the lines of communication are, it has become increasingly difficult for many businesses to predict their future workforce needs in a fragile economy still struggling to bounce back from one of the deepest and most prolonged recessions in history.

In addition, continued uncertainty about federal tax increases and spending cuts that could begin taking effect at the end of the year unless Congress acts has forced many business operators to put their employment forecasts on hold, said Chris Ferruso, an Ohio spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents more than 300,000 small businesses across the country.

“I applaud the governor’s efforts, but there’s a lot going on that is outside certainly anything the governor can do without a vote in Congress,” said Ferruso, who noted that even in a more certain economic environment, predicting future needs can be challenging for the small businesses his organization represents.

Many NFIB members are start-ups or businesses with less than 10 employees and less than $500,000 in revenue. Collectively, small to medium-sized firms can account for nearly two-thirds of new jobs created each year.

But Ferruso noted that more than half of small businesses never make it to their third year of operation.

“When it comes to forecasting, it depends who you’re asking and where they are in the life of their business,” he said. “If they’re a well-established business, they probably have better projections and they have a better idea of where they want to go. But trying to forecast where you’re going to be in five years is challenging for most of our members.”

Forecasts can be completed

Alan Shafer, chief executive of the West Carollton-based manufacturer Dayton Progress, said most of the state’s major employers should be able to provide at least a baseline forecast of their workforce needs based on simple forecasting models.

“For a company of any decent size that should be information that’s readily available,” said Shaffer, who’s company was recently acquired by the Japanese firm, MISUMI Group Inc.

“Every employer knows the age of all their employees, so one thing they can do is say that over the next five years this number of employees will reach full retirement age,” he said. “Then you can say…I’ve got to replace this many people who will retire, and this many people who will quit or get terminated.”

And the need for additional employees can be determined by economic forecasts, Shaffer added.

“If the governor says the economy is growing at 2 percent a year, I’ll probably need 2 percent more (workers) on top of what I have,” he said. “It shouldn’t be that hard to get a range.”

At the workforce board meeting, Kasich alluded to at least one plan to help encourage more buy-in from the state’s business community. He said he would soon unveil a plan to make available “20 or 30 million dollars” in revenues from the state’s casinos to help train workers to meet future needs.

In the meantime, the governor and his board will continue to try to “rationalize” the workforce training system and make it more user friendly for businesses and workers, Wehrkamp said. They will reconvene in March.

“One thing the governor is never afraid to say is just because something’s hard doesn’t mean it’s something we shouldn’t pursue,” she said. “This whole workforce development system has been a tangled web for years and years, and nobody’s really tackled it head on like this administration.”