While the city has pinned much of its hope for the future on luring high-technology companies, its work force is not sufficiently skilled to qualify for those jobs, an economist warned yesterday.
"If you don't create the programs to train the workers for the companies that are coming, the workers will just come from the suburbs," said Richard P. Clinch, director of economic research at the Jacob France Institute at the University of Baltimore.
City officials hope that several development projects will bring high-skill jobs to Baltimore.
Mayor Martin O'Malley has touted creation of the so-called digital harbor, or high-tech hub, and there are plans for an $800 million biotechnology park on the east side near the Johns Hopkins medical complex. The University of Maryland, Baltimore also hopes to create a biotech park on the west side. Morgan Stanley announced last month that it will open a major processing center in Fells Point.
Combined, those projects could mean thousands of jobs for the city.
But Clinch said those jobs might benefit very few city residents. "Jobs for low-skilled workers aren't being created in the parts of the economy that are growing," he said. "The question is how do we train the workers for these new jobs?"
City officials said they have been taking steps to teach residents the skills needed to qualify for high-tech jobs.
In September 2000, the city created the Baltimore Workforce Investment Board, a group appointed by O'Malley that looks at ways to train workers.
That board in turn formed the Baltimore Bio Coalition a year ago to look specifically at preparing residents for jobs in the biotechnology field.
"The city is very poised, and now far more educated, in terms of what we will need to do to ensure as we do our outreach to businesses, that we know the skills and qualifications for jobs," said Karen Sitnick, director of the mayor's office of employment development.
But Clinch told a crowd at the University of Baltimore that the city faces many obstacles in preparing its work force. He spoke at a forum about the effects of the economy on low-skilled workers.
He said Baltimore is hampered by high, high school drop-out rates. Compared with the rest of the nation, Baltimore has a large proportion of residents that are eligible to work, but don't. Although he hasn't researched the issue, he said it could be because of drug addiction among Baltimore residents.
Clinch said the biotech parks will also bring in high-skilled workers who could reside in the city as the housing stock improves. This in turn could push out poor people who can't find jobs, creating larger pockets of urban poverty throughout the city, he said.
Despite Baltimore's problem with placing low-skilled workers, Clinch emphasized that the city has also seen significant improvements.
For instance, he said, the job gap in the city is decreasing. In 1997, there were 2.9 candidates for every available job, he said. The latest figures, for 2000, show that there are 1.8 candidates for every available job.
Clinch offered solutions to improving the work opportunities for Baltimore residents, including updating the transportation system, creating more job and education opportunities and instituting more job training programs.
"I think things are more optimistic for Baltimore now than they've been in the nine years since I've been here," Clinch said. "There has been some strength, but there are also some signs of concern."