Malry connecting workers, state to business, higher ed
BYLINE: Haley Wachdorf
"Workforce data" might not be the catchiest phrase in the English language. But Len Malry thinks it's one of the most important phrases in the common language of economic development and higher education.
Malry, former deputy director of the New Mexico Office of Workforce Training and Development, has joined the New Mexico Higher Education Department in Santa Fe in the newly-created position of director of workforce education.
In that post, Malry will help the higher education department connect the workforce demands of businesses in the state with the curriculum plans that New Mexico's college and universities are making for their degree programs. Data is the way to make it happen, Malry says.
Malry has concerned himself with workforce matters since 2003, when he served on newly-elected Gov. Bill Richardson's transition team as the deputy secretary of labor. He says the way most government labor statistics are presented -- often two years old before they are made available to the public -- makes them useless for planning purposes.
Malry says he thinks it's time for states, including New Mexico, to find creative ways to paint a more complete portrait of labor needs. Malry believes that can be accomplished by compiling information from many sources -- labor statistics, unemployment rates, real estate trends and information from economic development officials about what kind of industries they think will be growing in the future.
"I think we've been shooting at targets without having a lot of data to back that up," Malry says. "I am all about data and really using it strategically to make your decisions."
Mark Lautman, director of economic development for 13,000-acre mega-development Mesa del Sol, couldn't agree more. Mesa del Sol, in 2006, paid for a workforce survey of the Albuquerque area by the Wadley-Donovan Group because local and regional data didn't say enough about whether or not Mesa del Sol could expect to find the applicants it will need to fill the 60,000 new jobs planned for the development.
More importantly, Lautman says his own study of national demographic trends has led him and others to the alarming conclusion that the United States will soon enter the first period of time in recent history when the demand for qualified applicants in knowledge-based fields will be dramatically higher than the number of available workers. Only states that have made efforts to grow a solid workforce for their industries will be able to continue growing, he predicts.
So while it's certainly been important in the past for the state's colleges and universities to make wise decisions about programs, Lautman believes those decisions will only become more crucial to the future of the state's economy in the coming years.
"Up until now, the business community was sourcing out of a labor market with more applicants than jobs, and so the business guy could sit back and say 'What the university does with one of their degree programs isn't going to profoundly effect the future of my business,'" Lautman says. "In the future, there will be a lot of businesses that will not make it, will not be able to grow, unless the universities act strategically."
The institutions Malry hopes his data-driven approach will help are optimistic as well.
Kathie Winograd, president elect of Central New Mexico Community College, says predicting market demands for student degrees is something to which CNM devotes a great deal of time and effort. For the state's largest community college, it's nothing short of vital to know that degrees are connected to available jobs. Even so, Winograd says CNM will welcome help from the state in that endeavor. Winograd also says CNM's sister community colleges in rural communities might be even more grateful for the assistance, since they might not have the resources to pursue workforce data on their own.