DuPage County will have to emerge as its own player in the global marketplace if it is to thrive in the near future, said a panel of area business experts.
As more corporate consolidations take place, local companies will have to look to global opportunities to develop their business. Concurrently, as many industries face a shortage of workers, the employee of tomorrow must pursue higher education for the area to remain competitive.
“In today’s market you have to think locally, but compete globally,” said Michael Birck, chairman of Tellabs, at a seminar presented by the DuPage Workforce Board. “You have to have a global perspective if you are going to be successful.”
Birck alluded to the telecom industry as a prime example of where consolidation is taken place in that with very few companies having strong purchasing power, companies like Tellabs are forced to actively seek more global clients.
“This is like déjà vu with the Bell system when there was no competition,” said Birck. “Now that system is back. We only have AT&T and Verizon. There is the consolidation aspect on a global scale. It is a challenging business with compressed margins.”
This global change has already been felt by many other industries during the past few years. While the manufacturing sector has once again become a solid performer, above historical levels, because of overseas outsourcing and the streamlining of production, employment in the sector has taken a huge hit.
“We (manufacturing sector) are still producing as much or more than we use to,” said Ronald Bullock, chairman and CEO of Bison Gear. “We went through a wrenching experience in 2001 and we came out with 30 percent fewer employees, but we have rebounded since then.”
Illinois still has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, said Bullock.
While the manufacturing sector may be suffering because of lack of employment opportunities, the health care industry is suffering from the exact opposite problem; there are thousands of available jobs, but no qualified candidates to fill them.
“The health care industry continues to grow and it will soon represent 20 percent of the gross domestic product,” said Trish Anen, vice president and chief nursing officer for Edward Hospital. “However, we have a growing nurse and physician shortage. We will be short 2,500 physicians in Illinois by 2014 and 8,000 nurses. By 2020 we will be short 800,000 nurses in the U.S.”
The average age of a nurse in Illinois is 50, which is not helping the matter as many of them will be looking to retire by 2020, said Anen.
As the workforce becomes more globally-based, technology is playing a larger role in every industry. If the area wants to remain competitive in the future the workforce must achieve a higher level of education.
“We need to increase the skill set of our workers,” said Bullock. “Technology dictates so much of what we do. Everything in the distribution industry is automated now. It has been difficult getting our workforce used to computers.”
Bullock said that 50 percent of applicants in the manufacturing industry are not competent in 8th grade level math and that there is a growing need for employees with a post-secondary education in the new economy.
Birck echoed this statement and said that highly educated employees in all industries are becoming scarce.
“In the technology business most of our employees are engineers, but they are a scarce commodity right now,” he said. “Fifty percent of graduate students in engineering are foreign nationals. If we can’t find the technically trained people here, that is an incentive to outsource.”
Technology will also drastically impact the health care field. As it slowly shifts to a consumer market, many potential users will be on-line researching potential doctors and clinics.
Patients will also pre-screen themselves over the Internet before they even go to the doctor’s office, said Edward’s Anen.
“We already have telemedicine, where we can monitor patients while they are at home,” she said. “We also have robots in surgery now.”
A potential major problem on the horizon for DuPage County is that of affordable housing for workers in the service industry or distribution centers. As housing costs continue to rise, many workers vital to the community are priced out of the market. This is even true for public servants like police officers and teachers.
“One thing we have to watch out for is that we need to cognizant of the wages for our semi-skilled laborers,” said Richard Hlava, senior vice president of operations for the Pampered Chef. “The wages of workers in our distribution center are going up faster than that of our professional staff. The reason is that we do not have a lot of affordable housing in the area and we do not have a good public transportation system.”