Talent Development
The shortage of qualified technical workers is also a challenge to the Corridor.
Nearly every sector of California's high-tech economy shares this problem.
It is compounded by the graying of the workforce and the low number of such
talent in the pipeline. A significant portion of the Corridor's 1.5M manufacturing
workforce is rapidly reaching retirement age, creating a technical worker crisis
of major proportions. Retirements are exacerbated by the fact that 37% of the
University of California technical grads are foreign students ineligible to
work on high-security projects. The State is just not graduating enough science
and math majors since, for example, 2100 math teachers are needed, not counting
those needed in industry, and only 1389 math majors graduated in California in
2004. The unemployment level within the Corridor has averaged more than 1% higher
than the national average for the 1990-2004 period and job growth for 2001-2004
showed a disturbing trend—industries with a net increase in employment paid
an annual wage almost $15,000 lower than industries showing a net decrease. Thus
the new jobs tend to be lower-wage. The many projects listed below were created
to both better understand the California workforce and improve its competitive
advantage.
Associated Projects (14):
- 3.1 Compilation of a Corporation Workforce Skills Analysis
- 3.2 Unifying a Space Employer/University Consortium
- 3.3 Advancing space related experiential university internships and mentoring programs
- 3.4 Develop and execute an outreach of systems engineering training programs throughout the Corridor
- 3.5 Organize the development of a statewide STEM education collaborative action plan
- 3.6 Creation and implementation of science and math middle and high school teachers institutes
- 3.7 Originate an industry-driven training program to retrain dislocated software specialists for space related computer science technician work
- 3.8 Orientation of university and graduate advisors to innovation-oriented acumen through the establishment of an industry mentorship link
- 3.9 Develop a program to bring engineers, technicians and scientists who are
retiring or separating from industry into grades 6-12 classrooms as new
teachers.
- 3.10 Establish a model university and high school mentoring program
- 3.11 Foster a community college industrial technology-based degree in Mechatronics
- 3.12 Produce real-world curriculum for educator conferences focused on STEM education and space
science
- 3.13 California Virtual Space Education Center
- 3.14 Building a Learning Collaboratory of training and best practices on innovative approaches to partnerships in support of an innovation ecosystem
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