3 The Opportunity Ahead: A Call to Action for American Skills and Jobs concern for local, regional, and national economies. Among industrialized nations, higher levels of adult skills have higher productivity and substantially higher long-term economic growth. In the United States, states with better-educated workforces have higher economic growth and higher 40 wages. And skills development is a concern for businesses. In a 2012 McKinsey survey, 36 percent of employers reported that a lack of employee skills caused “significant problems in terms of cost, quality, and time,” bolstering the business case for employers to invest in upgrading the skills of their 41 front-line employees. There is evidence that education and training programs offered through the workplace can benefit both workers and employers. For example, a quasi-experimental evaluation of a workplace literacy program for low-wage manufacturing workers found that average wage growth for participants was higher than that for non-participants and that participants were more likely to apply for and to receive promotions than comparable non-participants.42 A random assignment study of workplace literacy programs conducted in late 1990s also found positive impacts of literacy programs on worker outcomes, including improved skills, attendance, and job performance; higher receipt of job benefits; and development of new career plans.43 Examples of Job-Driven Training and Industry Career Pathways for Upward Mobility On-Ramps in Retail Nearly 20 percent of workers employed in the retail industry are lower-skilled, an industry which has 44 been seen by some as lacking career potential. However, moving up to retail supervisor roles can provide a meaningful “skills on-ramp” to jobs across industries and occupations. The skills employees build in retail supervisor jobs have particularly strong relevance to higher-paid sales and customer service management roles. According to data collected by Burning Glass, over 28 percent of workers in retail supervisor roles without bachelor’s degrees transition to sales and customer care management. These are attainable jobs for these workers, because 47 percent of them do not require bachelor’s degrees. They also offer middle-class wages; the average advertised annual salary for a sales or customer service role two career steps away from a retail supervisor position is 45 $56,392. On-Ramps in IT A range of IT jobs are in high demand. IT jobs are unusual in that, more than any other occupational field, a growing number of employers treat relevant skill and competency as a sufficient qualification 40 Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessman, “How Much Do Educational Outcomes Matter in OECD Countries?” Working Paper 16515, NBER (November 2010). 41 Mona Mourshed, Diana Farrell, and Dominic Barton, “Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works,” McKinsey Center for Government (2013). 42 A. Krueger and C. Rouse, “New Evidence on Workplace Education Working Paper 4831,” National Bureau of Economic Research (1994). 43 M.T. Moore, D. Myers, and T. Silva, “Addressing Literacy Needs at Work: Implementation and Impact of Workplace Literacy Programs: Final Report of national evaluation of NWLP partnerships,” (1998). 44 “Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies,” OECD (2013). 45 “Retail Career Ladders,” Burning Glass Technologies (unpublished). 64