LANSING – Millions of low-skills jobs have been eliminated in the national recession but there has been growth in the number of jobs that require advanced education, a report issued Tuesday by Michigan Future Incorporated found.
While the number of jobs created is less than a tenth of those lost, 162,000 compared to 3.75 million lost, the report’s authors, Michigan Future President Lou Glazer and University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes, said the results are clear: the future of economic growth in the United States will be concentrated in jobs that are knowledge-based.
Since 1990, the report said jobs in lower-skilled employment like manufacturing have increased by 16 percent, while jobs requiring higher skills and more advanced education have increased by 32 percent.
The report is not necessarily good news for the state, since it has fallen behind others in terms of funding for higher education and promoting higher skills employment.
“Michigan has lagged in its support of the assets necessary to develop a knowledge economy at the needed scale. Building that economy is going to take a long time and require fundamental change. But we believe it is the only reliable path to regain high prosperity,” Grimes said.
The automotive industry will remain important to the state’s economy, the two said, but the classic road to middle-class status the auto industry offered in terms of high-wage, low-skills employment is vanishing.
For the state to grow its economy, Glazer and Grimes said Michigan has to promote development of not just industry in new energy, biotechnology and information technology but in finance, insurance, professional and technical services, health care and education.
Middle-class employment will now come from the growth of higher-educated, higher skills jobs, Glazer said.
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