Skills, Training and Workforce Development in North Carolina: The Role of Community Colleges

Deepa George Department of Sociology

Duke University

January 2006

Paper #1

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Abstract

In the United States, community colleges have emerged as a key institution to provide workers with the skills needed in a changing global and national economy. North Carolina has the third largest community college system in the country and focuses on worker retraining and skill upgrading issues. In this study, I am looking at the effectiveness of NC community colleges in providing both high and low skill workers with opportunities for retraining in emerging industries or for upgrading skills to be more competitive in their current industries. Both surveys and interviews were utilized to examine career trajectories, education and training backgrounds of recent community college attendees. My main findings suggest that workers enrolled in IT or computer related courses are primarily interested in upgrading their skills to remain competitive in their current industries. Surveys with workers enrolled in the BioWorks course indicate that training at community colleges for new industries, such as biotechnology, attracts both high skill and low skill workers, in addition to workers with no prior background in biotechnology. Finally, surveys with recent hires for entry-level positions at a local biotechnology firm and interviews with employers at the firm find that employers prefer to hire workers with prior experience in manufacturing industries and training in biotechnology or a related field.

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1. Introduction Retraining and skill upgrading have become necessary components of workforce development in the state of North Carolina. With the decline of traditional industries including textile, furniture, and tobacco, workers in these industries face the challenge of finding jobs in related industries or retraining for jobs in new industries. At the same time, recent attempts to establish high-tech industry niches in North Carolina, in IT and biotechnology, creates opportunities for employment in emerging industry sectors (North Carolina Biotechnology Center 2004). One way for North Carolina’s workers to respond to fluctuations in industry employment is by seeking out retraining opportunities, mid-career, to enhance their ability to remain competitive in their current industry or to give them the opportunity to retrain for careers in new industries. One important avenue for workers to gain additional training is by taking relevant courses at the state’s community colleges.1 The North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) plays an important role in retraining workers and is one of the leaders in workforce retraining initiatives in the United States. North Carolina, like other US states, has witnessed significant job losses from increased globalization and outsourcing that has left several of the state’s workers without jobs. Furthermore, an increasingly competitive economy requires that workers seek retraining and skill upgrading opportunities throughout their careers in order to remain competitive in the job market. The state’s community college system has responded to these challenges by collaborating with industry and state level agencies in creating courses to train workers in new and emerging industries, in addition to courses that help workers upgrade their skills in current industries (North Carolina Community College System 2003, 2005). This paper determines the extent to which community college serve their role in worker retraining by looking at the educational backgrounds and job histories of students enrolled in courses at a local community college.

The results in this paper are based on a pilot study involving surveys of students enrolled in IT and biomanufacturing courses at Durham Technical Community College. The survey was administered in fall 2004. I administered the survey to workers enrolled in Introduction to Java Programming and Intermediate Excel, in addition to two sections of the biomanufacturing course, BioWorks. I supplemented evidence for training at community colleges with information on corporate training initiatives at a local biomanufacturing facility. In the latter case, I surveyed recent hires at entry-level biomanufacturing positions and conducted semi-structured interviews with training staff at the firm. My study explores the role of community colleges in helping workers retrain for jobs in the same industry and in training workers who are switching to careers in new and emerging industries. The results of this study suggest that workers in courses such as Java Programming are primarily high skill workers, with Bachelor’s degrees, who are seeking opportunities to upgrade their skills in the IT industry. Surveys with workers in an Intermediate Excel course find that these workers are primarily low skill workers, with mainly administrative backgrounds, who are seeking training to remain competitive in 1 A study by the Urban Institute, has examined the impact of community college training on IT employment in the United States (Lerman et al., 2000).

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their current jobs. My study of students enrolled in the recent BioWorks initiative at Durham Tech—a program to assist displaced workers find jobs in the state’s growing biomanufacturing sector--find that this course attracts a diversity of workers in terms of their prior educational backgrounds, skill levels, and job histories. This finding suggests that the biomanufacturing industry provides potential for workers from diverse employment and educational backgrounds to find jobs in a potential growth industry for the state. This paper is a preliminary attempt to gain detailed information on workers who enroll in community colleges and is a pilot study to guide future research in the area of workforce development in North Carolina, particularly in terms of retraining and the ability for community colleges to assist the state’s vulnerable workers in finding viable employment opportunities.

The next section presents trends from my case study at Durham Technical

Community College. The third section describes preliminary findings from interviews at a local biomanufacturing firm. In section four, I present ideas for future research on community colleges and workforce development. II. Retraining at a Local Community College: Case Study of Durham Tech

The results in this paper are based on a pilot study involving site visits to Durham Technical Community College. These visits provided details on curricula, student population, and faculty at Durham Tech’s continuing education program. My case study allows me to address questions pertaining to workers enrolled in continuing education courses including their educational qualifications, skill levels, and details on their job histories, particularly if they are transitioning from declining industries to emerging industries. In addition, I include information from site visits to a local biomanufacturing facility, to provide evidence for corporate training efforts in Research Triangle Park, NC. This part of the study attempts to see the connections, if any, between employers and neighboring community colleges and compares corporate with community college training. Based on my interviews at the facility, I examine the employer perspective on hiring entry-level biomanufacturing workers and provide information on the backgrounds of new hires at the firm. Methodology I chose to do a case study of Durham Technical Community College located in the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area, and interviews at a biotechnology firm located in Research Triangle Park. Durham Tech has a strong emphasis on continuing education and offers courses in biotechnology and IT. My case study involved surveys with workers enrolled in IT and biotechnology courses at Durham Tech in the fall of 2004. The survey was administered to students enrolled in Introduction to Java Programming, Intermediate Excel, and two sections of BioWorks. In total, 38 students were surveyed in these courses, representing the entire student population in all courses surveyed. In addition, I conducted semi-structured interviews with instructors of each course in order to understand curricular issues and obtain information on instructors’ prior backgrounds.

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An additional component of this study included interviews with policy makers at the North Carolina Community College System and members of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. A final component of this study includes surveys with recent hires at Biogen Idec’s manufacturing facility in the Research Triangle Park. In addition to these surveys, I interviewed training staff at Biogen Idec to explore the employer’s perspective in hiring and training biomanufacturing workers. Who takes courses at community colleges?

Table 1, provides information on the composition of students enrolled in courses at Durham Technical Community College and includes information on gender, nationality, race, average age and county of residence. The table shows that the majority of students enrolled in the Intermediate Excel course are female and all students enrolled in the Java Programming course are men. The gender ratio for each sections of the Bioworks course is approximately even between men and women. Based on data provided by Durham Tech’s Continuing Education program for overall enrollment in 2004, 46% of students enrolled were female and 54% were male. In addition, my survey results show that the average age for students enrolled in both Java Programming and Intermediate Excel is above the average age for the two sections of Bioworks, indicating that the BioWorks course attracts younger workers who are seeking job opportunities in a new industry. Workers enrolled in Intermediate Excel are on average 41 years of age, those enrolled in the Java Programming course are on average 48 years of age, and the average for workers in Bioworks is 34.5. The median age for all students enrolled in continuing education courses at Durham Tech was 35.9 for 2004. What are the students’ educational backgrounds?

In Table 2, I summarize results for the educational backgrounds of students surveyed. This table includes information on the highest level of education obtained, field of study, and prior enrollment in community college courses. I find that the highest level of education obtained by students in the Intermediate Excel course and those enrolled in the BioWorks course includes those with just a high school education and more advanced graduates with at least a bachelor’s degree. These courses seem to enroll a diversity of educational backgrounds. All respondents in the Java Programming course have at least a bachelor’s degree. In the case of the Intermediate Excel course, 4 out of the 11 students surveyed had a high school education and/or some college, 3 had an associate’s degree, and the remaining three had a bachelor and/or a master’s degree. In the two sections of Bioworks, 6 out of the total of 22 students had a high school diploma and/or some college, 11 had a bachelor’s degree, and 3 had a master’s and/or a doctorate. These preliminary findings suggest that community college courses attract both highly educated workers as well as those with just a high school diploma. The presence of students with at least a bachelor’s degree in these courses, indicate that these workers are interested in acquiring new skills or upgrading their existing skills and are seeking opportunities mid-career.

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The table also provides information on the prior fields of study for the students enrolled in courses at Durham Tech. For those enrolled in the Intermediate Excel course, their backgrounds are primarily in accounting and the secretarial sciences, suggesting that most students in the course are interested in upgrading their existing skills. In the Introductory Java Programming course, all respondents have backgrounds in computer science and mathematics. My study finds that respondents in the Bioworks courses have varied backgrounds in terms of their prior fields of study and not all respondents in these courses have prior science backgrounds. This observation provides evidence that respondents taking the BioWorks course are changing careers and gaining skills in the new field of biomanufacturing. With the exception of a small number of BioWorks respondents with prior educational backgrounds in organic chemistry, biochemistry, and biotechnology, a majority of respondents indicate their prior backgrounds to be in a field other than the biological sciences. Prior fields of study for Bioworks respondents include computer programming, electronics, operations analysis, industrial relations, technicians, and physical education. What is the current employment status of individuals taking community college courses?

Table 3, summarizes the current employment status for all respondents. With one exception, respondents in the Intermediate Excel course are employed full-time, indicating that they are potentially taking these courses to upgrade their skills in their current jobs. In the Introductory Excel course, 2 out of 5 respondents were employed full time at the time of the survey, and the remaining three either worked part time; were unemployed, laid off, or looking for a job; or were retired. For respondents enrolled in the morning session of Bioworks, 4 worked full-time, 5 out of 11 were unemployed, laid-off or looking for a job, and the other 2 respondents work part-time. The percentage of full time workers is higher in the evening session of Bioworks, 9 out of 11 respondents in this course were employed on a full-time basis, 1 worked part-time and the other respondent was either, unemployed, laid-off or looking for a job. Comparing these figures with overall figures for employment status at Durham Tech in 2004, the figures find that 56 percent of enrolled students were employed on a full-time basis, 13 percent worked part-time, 28 percent were unemployed, and 3 percent had retired from their previous jobs. Job Histories

What industries were workers employed in prior to taking community college courses? What are their job histories? Are these workers making career transitions and gaining skills in new industries? Do they utilize courses at community colleges to be more competitive in their current jobs? To answer these questions, my surveys ask respondents to indicate the two most recent jobs they held, the skills required for these jobs, and their reasons for leaving the job. Comparing responses from students in the three courses I surveyed, I find that students in Java Programming and Excel are mainly interested in upgrading their skills for careers in existing industries, while students in the BioWorks course are primarily gaining skills for entry into a new industry. Table 2 provides information on the reasons for students enrolling in a particular community

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college courses. Potential responses include: training requirement for current employer; to be more competitive and gain new skills in current job; unemployed, laid off, improve job chances; or that workers are interested in skills for a new industry. A majority of workers enrolled in Intermediate Excel hold a high school diploma or an associate’s degree, are female, and are employed full-time. Most respondents are enrolled in the course to be more competitive and gain new skills in their current job or the course was part of the training requirement for their current job. There is no pattern of workers transitioning across industries and their skills required for first and second jobs are similar. Workers in this course are engaged in accounting, secretarial, retail, administrative, sales, and clerical positions in various industries.

In the case of workers enrolled in Java Programming, they tend to have higher educational levels, are male, and most have a bachelor’s degree. These workers are enrolled in the course to improve their skills in their current industry, and the surveys indicate that they have prior backgrounds in computer science and work experience in the IT industry. In one case a worker was laid off from an earlier job after it was outsourced. Another respondent mentioned retiring from his previous firm when the firm was downsizing. Current and/or prior job experience includes consultants for the IT industry, systems analysts, UNIX programmers, and systems integration specialists. I find no evidence for workers transitioning across industries and all are interested in finding jobs in the IT industry, or staying more competitive in their current IT jobs by moving into industry niches that require higher skills.

Over sixty percent of students enrolled in the BioWorks course were taking the course to acquire skills for a new industry. Five out of the 22 workers surveyed for the course were unemployed or laid off at the time of the survey. Almost half the students enrolled in the course had a Bachelor’s degree. Two students held a master’s degree—one in computer science, and the other in biotechnology. One student taking the course had a doctoral degree in organic chemistry. Approximately 30 percent of people surveyed had only a high school diploma. Only two of the eleven workers with a bachelor’s degree had achieved it in a field related to biology or chemistry. The remaining degrees ranged from industrial relations, economics, computer programming, and psychology. This provides evidence that even workers with a bachelor’s degree seek community college training for training in fields for which they have no prior educational backgrounds. A majority of respondents with a bachelor’s degree were currently enrolled in or had previously taken courses at other community colleges. The courses students enroll in include lower level computer courses, such as A+ certification and computer trouble shooting, and other computer related courses such as SAS programming and Oracle. Most respondents with a bachelor’s degree had full time jobs at the time of the interview, and two workers with the bachelor’s degree were unemployed, laid off or looking for work. One of the unemployed workers was previously employed as a programmer in the IT industry and was laid off from his earlier job. For approximately a third of the workers with a bachelor’s degree, their most recent (or current) job was in a field related to biomanufacturing. Their areas include lab assistant, process technicians in the cosmetics industry, and quality assurance technicians. The remaining workers were employed in industries not related to biomanufacturing, with about half these workers

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having been employed in other high tech industries. Previous work experiences for those in non biomanufacturing industries include, fitness training, fitness intern, tax preparation, and sales.

The advanced degree students, with a master’s and/or a doctoral degree, were all

enrolled in other community college courses. One worker, with a master’s degree was enrolled in other biology courses, including, plant and animal cell culture. Another with a master’s in computer science had taken A+ certification, network certification and SQL. The respondent with a doctoral degree was enrolled in Introduction to PC and Microsoft Office. 2 of the respondents were unemployed and looking for work at the time of the survey. The survey indicates that these workers have prior work experience in research labs and are interested in improving their chances in finding a job. Further research should look at the extent to which Bioworks courses enroll advanced degree students and the reasons for their enrollment in community college courses. Are these mainly workers who were laid off in other high tech industries? Or are they workers with current and or previous work experience in an industry related to biomanufacturing? In addition, it is important to look at the reasons for high skill workers enrolling in courses for entry-level positions in biomanufacturing, and the relevance of community college training for these workers.

For the majority of respondents with a high school diploma, the BioWorks course was their first community college course. Four out of the six workers with a high school diploma were employed on a full-time basis at the time of the survey, and the remaining two were unemployed, laid off or looking for work. None of the respondents with only a high school degree had any prior experience in biomanufacturing or a related industry. Their current (and/or prior) backgrounds include customer service representative, cable technicians, warehouse assistants, security, electricians and insurance underwriters. The average age for those with a high school degree is approximately 33, indicating that these workers are not recent high school graduates and have had prior work experience. Only two of the 22 surveyed students in Durham Tech’s BioWorks course had an associate’s degree. One of the workers with an associate’s degree was employed in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry as a quality assurance technician and had prior experience in medical device manufacturing. I turn now to a discussion of hiring and training at a local biomanufacturing firm to provide evidence for the employer’s perspective. III. Employment and Training at a Local Biomanufacturing Firm I surveyed nine new hires for entry-level positions at a local bio-manufacturing facility to obtain their prior educational backgrounds and work experience. Table 1 includes information on age, gender, race, and county of residence for those surveyed. A majority of new hires are male and on average new hires are 35 years of age. 2 of the 9 new hires had a Bachelor’s degree, 3 had an associate’s degree, and the remaining 4 had a high school degree. My survey looked at the hires’ prior training background and found that neither of the hires with a bachelor’s degree had prior training in biomanufacturing or were previously enrolled in BioWorks courses. All three of the hires with an

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associate’s degree had completed the Industrial Pharmaceutical Technology course at Wake Technical Community College. The four high school graduates were the only new hires to have completed the BioWorks course. With the exception of one respondent who was in school prior to joining the firm, all new hires had worked full-time. My surveys asked respondents about their prior work experience in the biotechnology industry. Six of the nine new hires had previous work experience in a biotechnology and/or pharmaceutical company. Their reasons for leaving their prior jobs was primarily because they were dissatisfied for reasons ranging from low pay to limited opportunities for advancement. One respondent cites having being laid off because of cheaper labor costs overseas. On average these respondents worked at their prior jobs in a related industry for 3.7 years. Their previous jobs include process technicians, chemical operators, component technician, and quality control specialists. It is interesting to note that none of the three workers without any prior industry experience had taken the BioWorks course. Future research should look at the extent to which biomanufacturing firms hire workers without any prior training or work experience in the industry. What qualifications do workers require in the case that they have no prior training and how does corporate training compensate for the lack of training experience? In my interviews with training staff, they cite prior industry experience as the most important factor in hiring workers for a biomanufacturing job at their firm. They mention that though it is preferable that workers’ prior industry experience be in the pharmaceutical and/or biotechnology industry, they prefer to hire workers with manufacturing experience in any industry, against workers with no experience working at a manufacturing facility. In addition, workers with BioWorks training or similar industry training are preferred to other workers. The training staff at the firm has a diversity of training backgrounds, but most were trained in a biological science and/or chemistry and had previously worked at a pharmaceutical and/or biotechnology firm. Apart from the required technical skills, employers mention other skills, such as, teamwork, communication, motivation, and corporate culture as important factors in determining fit for the firm. For instance, training staff mention that in the case of mid-management workers from high-tech industries, particularly IT, workers’ motivation is a serious issue for the firm. Several of these workers are over qualified for the job and view their employment at a biomanufacturing facility as a temporary assignment before finding other jobs. Employers mention that these workers are often not matched well with the routine and often repetitive tasks required for biomanufacturing. Therefore, the firm prefers to hire workers from other manufacturing industries with the job tasks are more similar. Employers also mention a preference in hiring workers from firms in the Research Triangle area instead of rural counties in North Carolina. Their reason for doing so is because firms in the Triangle have similar work environments and corporate culture compared with firms in rural counties. This observation is interesting in light of the fact that the state is actively promoting retraining for workers in declining industries, most of which are located in rural counties that are further away from the Triangle. In the future, research should look at employment opportunities for workers from remote counties in finding jobs at high-tech firms in the Triangle.

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IV. Directions for Future Research Based on my pilot study, I propose directions for future research on issues related to workforce development in North Carolina. The issue of retraining workers from all types of industries, high-tech and low-tech, will continue to be an important policy issue, and detailed research on the effectiveness of community colleges in providing workers with training, the extent to which workers seek community college training to maintain stable jobs, and the interaction between community colleges and employers in placing workers in appropriate employment positions, will help inform future policy in the state. I propose the following suggestions for future research. First, the results of this study are based on surveys conducted in the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area, which is home to several high-tech firms. Additional research should incorporate county level variations in community college course offerings and include counties that have a higher concentration of traditional industry. For instance, in the case of biomanufacturing and IT, these industries are concentrated in Durham and Wake counties. In the case of furniture, the industry is concentrated in Guilford, Davidson, Caldwell, and Catawba counties, while the textile industry is concentrated in Guilford, Gaston, and Alamance counties (www.soc.duke.edu/NC_GlobalEconomy). Research should incorporates studies of community colleges in counties that are directly impacted by job losses in traditional industries and examine the role these colleges play in retraining workers for new industries. For instance, four of the eleven community college offering BioWorks programs are located in the vicinity of the Research Triangle region—where the biotechnology industry is concentrated. Asheville-Buncombe is the only college offering Bioworks in the western region of the state. The Piedmont Community College and Guilford Community College are colleges in the northern counties that offer BioWorks. Central Carolina Community College and Fayetteville Community College are located in central regions of the state and also offer BioWorks. Future research should examine the extent to which a course such as BioWorks is effective in retraining vulnerable workers from traditional industries and examine variations across counties in North Carolina. Apart from incorporating additional counties, I propose that future research incorporate a wider range of courses in order to provide further details on the effectiveness of community colleges in retraining workers. Interviews with students enrolled in community college courses and an analysis of the curriculum at various community colleges should look at whether courses are tailored to suit employment opportunities and industries profiles in the county in which the college is located, or whether these colleges provide training for workers to move to other counties with better employment prospects. In other words, how effective are community colleges in tailoring courses to ‘local’ needs, and how closely do these colleges work with local employers in attracting new industries and providing a trained workforce for existing industries? I suspect that county level variation in community college curricula and the implications for workers in individual counties will exhibit significant variation, based on industry and employment profiles for the counties studied. I expect that any variation at

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the county level will depend on whether these counties have in the past been the focus of traditional industry employment, or whether they are trying to attract new industries. For instance, Durham Technical Community College’s Spring 2006 schedule offers workers training in a range of biopharma courses, a medical transcription certificate program for entry-level jobs in medical transcription, and a range of computer related courses. A comparison of curricular offerings at community colleges from other regions of the state would provide preliminary evidence for the variations in continuing education courses at the county level.

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References Lerman, Robert I., Riegg, Stephanie, K., and Harold Salzman. “The Role of Community Colleges in Expanding the Supply of Information Technology Workers.” May 2000. The Urban Institute. North Carolina Biotechnology Center, Education and Training Program. 2003. Window on the Workplace.” March. North Carolina Biotechnology Center. 2004a. New Jobs Across North Carolina: A Strategic Plan for Growing the Economic Statewide through Biotechnology. Raleigh: NC Biotechnology Center. North Carolina Community College System Fact Book. “A Matter of Facts” http://www.ncccs.cc.nc.us/Publications/docs/Publications/fb2005.pdf. Accessed on December 28, 2005. “North Carolina in the Global Economy” website. www.soc.duke.edu/NC_GlobalEconomy. Accessed January 4, 2006

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Table 1: Basic Demographic Information for Students Enrolled at Durham Technical Community College

Intermediate Excel

Intro to Java Programming

Bioworks 1

Bioworks 2 Firm

Gender Male 1 5 6 7 6

Female 10 0 5 4 3Nationality

US 10 4 7 9 7Overseas 1 1 4 2 2

Race White 5 4 3 3 3Black 6 5 6 4Asian 1 2 2 2Other

Average Age 41.5 48 37.2 33.8 35County of Residence

Durham 8 5 2 5 Orange 2 2 1

Franklin 1 1 1Wake 6 5 5

Johnston 1Nash 1

Wayne 1

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Table 2: Educational Backgrounds of Students in Durham Technical Community College

Intermediate Excel

Intro to Java Programming Bioworks 1 Bioworks 2

Highest Level of Education High school only 3 4 1

High school and some college 1 1 1

Associate's 3 1 1 1 Bachelor's 2 3 4 7

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4 7

Master's 1 1 Doctorate 1

Educational backgrounds Sociology, Accounting, Secretarial Science, Business

Computer science, Botany, Theology, Math, Chemistry

Organic chemistry, medicine, computer programming, electronics, operations analysis, industrial relations, biotechnology

Health education and promotion, dental lab tech, economics, geography, computer science, speech, exercise science, biochemistry, physical ed, psychology

Previously enrolled in community college courses

Yes 8 2 7 No 3 3 4

Other community college courses taken

Intro to Excel, Word, Intermediate Word, PowerPoint, Notary public, web page design, HTML, Interview skills, ESL

web page design, machinist course, automotive course, computer programming

Intro to PC, Microsoft office for office professional, windows, SAS programming, Oracle, Auto mechanics, computer troubleshooting, notary, CAN, plant cell culture, animal cell culture

A+ certification, CAN1, GRE math prep, electronics, SQL, electronics

Table 3: Employment Status

Intermediate Excel

Intro to Java Programming

Bioworks 1

Bioworks 2

Current Employment Status Full time 10 2 4 9Part-time 1 2 1

Unemployed, laid-off, looking for work 1 1 5 1

Retired 1 Number of jobs held since age of 18

1 1 2 2 2 13 2 1 1

>4 6 4 7 8 Table 4: Reasons for taking courses at Durham Tech Community College

Intermediate Excel

Introduction to Java Programming BioWorks1 BioWorks2

Reasons for taking course Training requirement for current employer 2 More competitive and gain new skills 5 2 2Unemployed, laid off, improve job chances 1 3 2Interested in skills for a new industry 3 1 6 8Other 2

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