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the talent dividend summit

Posted by eve on Jun 17, 2009 | 9 Comments

talent dividendI wrote about the Talent Dividend summit a couple of days ago.  Now I’d like to tell you what I learned there.

If Pittsburgh focussed on increasing the number of residents with four year college degrees by just 1%, we’d reap an annual dividend, the “Talent Dividend”, of $1.8 billion dollars.   $1.8 billion dollars is the equivalent to the payroll of a very very large company.    This is not an argument for education.  This is an argument for economic development.

Currently Pittsburgh sits in the bottom one-third of 50 metro areas in four year college attainment rates.  I’m sure you know the cities that sit at the top of the list.   They are cities that thrive and continue to attract talent.   Those cities are Washington, San Jose, San Francisco, Boston, Raleigh, Austin, Minneapolis and Seattle.  Talent begets talent.

What benefits would we gain from a better educated population?  First, higher median incomes across the board, with an approximate increase of $2000 per household per annum.  Second, lower unemployment rates, since unemployment rates are always higher with less education.

Our best opportunity for achieving the Talent Dividend, may lie in several areas.  First, we have many expatriate Pittsburghers who would like to return.  Second, we may be able to do a better job retaining the talent we have.  Can we do a better job match making people to jobs that are available?  There are currently 17,000 positions posted on imaginemynewjob.com, the Pittsburgh Regional Alliances new job site.  That’s a lot of vacant jobs!  Third, there are a large group of people who started college and did not finish.  Who are they?  How can we help them attain that four year college degree?

There are important initiatives, such as the Pittsburgh Promise, that are underway and will help us to reach this 1% increase.   It will take focus to find other ways to get there.

9 comments

  1. Abby Sadowsky
    June 18, 2009

    I was also part of the dynamic discussion on the Talent Dividend, and thank you Eve, and CEOs for Cities in general, for continuing to raise these important questions. I just wanted to point out that there are actually a total of 24,953 jobs posted on http://www.ImagineMyNewJob.com (as of today, June 18) within the 71-mile radius of Pittsburgh – which spans the 10-county Pittsburgh region.

    For those unfamiliar, ImagineMyNewJob.com is the local jobseeker’s most efficient online search tool. It’s a one-stop portal that pools together listings from both large career search engines along with those from private company sites. Please help us spread the word to local talent about the wealth of opportunities that ARE available here, NOW! Easy tools to help you do so are available in our online toolbox – http://imaginemynewjob.com/Toolbox.asp. Feel free to contact me with questions (asadowsky@alleghenyconference.org)

  2. Ilya Goldin
    June 20, 2009

    Ms. Picker, meet Mr. Briem.

    http://nullspace2.blogspot.com/2009/06/education-burgh.html

    Executive summary: Those education ratings may be artificially low.

    P.S. Very happy to see you blogging.

  3. eve
    June 20, 2009

    I’ve always admired Chris’s work and musings. CEOs for Cities’ Carol Coletta is the first to say that our demographics are skewed by an older, less educated population. But in the end, what does it matter? If we take today as ground zero, and we were able to increase the number of residents with college degrees by 1%, that would reap $1.8 billion for our local economy annually. Does it matter where we begin and whether we can agree on the starting point? Surely this is a worthy pursuit.

    P.S Thanks for your comment

  4. Ilya Goldin
    June 20, 2009

    You’re right that if the 1% increase results in a $1.8B payoff, this is indeed an interesting pursuit. (I suppose whether it’s worthy or not depends on the resources that it takes to pursue that 1% increase, and whether they might be more efficiently spent for the betterment of our region in some other way.)

    But it wasn’t clear from your post whether the 1% increase to 1.8B payoff is or isn’t affected by the starting point. Given that we have confusion about the starting point, I imagine the cost of going from, say, 10% to 11% is not the same as, say, 70% to 71%.

    All that said, I think the notion of a 1% increase in the educated workforce is interesting in itself because it touches on so many issues — blue collar vs white collar jobs, manufacturing vs. high-tech, immigration, etc.

  5. Butuan City
    July 17, 2009

    nice to see expats here

  6. Petronila Chudzinski
    December 28, 2009

    We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community. Your blog provided us valuable information to work on.You have done a marvellous job!

  7. Marjory Cheslock
    December 28, 2009

    Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful for me.

  8. eve
    December 29, 2009

    Sure – I will try to update this. Thanks for reading!

  9. eve
    December 29, 2009

    Thank you!