Manufacturers' workforce worries deserve heed

Enterprise Minnesota's annual State of Manufacturing survey is up against stiff news competition at the Capitol Tuesday from the Special Redistricting Panel's new legislative and congressional maps. But the public policy concerns of 400 Minnesota manufacturing executives ought not go unnoticed. Those employers provide the high-wage, high-tech, talent-attracting jobs that are key to maintaining Minnesota's prosperity. Notable in the fourth annual survey is the jump in worry about an ability to attract and retain qualified workers. Nearly a third of the manufacturers surveyed rated a shortage of qualified workers as a major concern, double the share who expressed that worry in 2011. A qualified worker shortage did not rank as high on the complaint list as did the perennial gripes about expensive health care, taxes and regulations. But it's the fastest-growing challenge manufacturers face, and one that won't be easy to overcome. An aging workforce combines with the comparatively lower academic attainment of the fastest-growing segment of the under-25-year-old population to threaten to erode Minnesota's position as an educated-workforce leader among the state.Preserving Minnesota's workforce edge will require bucking the demographic tide. That's not impossible. But it will require more concerted and bipartisan effort than Minnesota has seen to date. For survey details, see www.enterpriseminnesota.org.