May 18--ALBANY -- By Dan Higgins, Times Union, Albany, N.Y. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
The shortage of qualified workers in the U.S. power generation industry is bound to get worse in the next five years, officials said Tuesday.
By 2007, the number of power industry jobs will exceed the number of workers,
said Elaine Weinstein, senior vice president and chief diversity officer for
Brooklyn-based Keyspan Corp., which sells electricity and natural gas.
By 2012, the gap should widen, with about 10,000 power industry jobs more
than available workers to fill them, Weinstein said, citing federal Bureau of
Labor Statistics projections.
"In a nutshell, we've got a problem," she said.
S.S. "Mani" Venkata, dean of the School of Engineering at Clarkson
University in Potsdam, said the image of engineers in this country is one reason
young people don't choose that field. "It's not a prestige career ... like
law, or business," he said. "People in the U.S. think of it as an
applied sciences degree, but it is a professional degree," he said.
He warned that the United States is graduating only 60,000 engineers a year,
while China graduates more than 600,000 and India 300,000 from their schools.
The power industry also needs skilled technicians and operators, round-table
participants said, and vocational high school programs and community colleges
can help fill the gap.
Keyspan's Weinstein said the work force is graying, with 48 the average age
for utility employees. At the same time, she said, it's difficult for parents to
direct their children toward technical education rather than a four-year degree.
"How many parents are encouraging their kids to be a utility
lineman?" she said. "Yet there are people with higher degrees who
could have been wonderful trade workers or crafts-people."
Barry Weinberg, president of Fulton-Montgomery Community College, said
educators are looking at ways to change how community colleges operate, with a
new focus on providing specialized training for high-demand jobs.
The round-table was moderated by Assemblyman Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam,
chairman of the Assembly Committee on Energy. Other participants included Steve
Labate, a recruiter for GE Global Research in Niskayuna, and Jim Buhrmaster,
president of Scotia-based Buhrmaster Energy Group.
-----
To see more of the Times Union, or to subscribe to the
newspaper, go to http://www.timesunion.com
.
Copyright (c) 2005, Times Union, Albany, N.Y.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at
(800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail
reprints@krtinfo.com. KSE,