Uptight business lobby: tomorrow's job future

By CHARLES N. WHEELER III

Always uneasy when the Illinois General Assembly is in session, lobbyists for the state's business community seem especially uptight this spring. A good part of their concern could stem, sensibly enough, from the unusually high number of vehicle bills tossed into the legislative hopper. Seeing dozens of proposals that merely change a reference in this labor law, or only make a grammatical correction in that regulatory statute, then imagining what each could become with a sly amendment or a sneaky conference committee report, is enough to make anyone reach for the antacid.

But the major business groups are fretting about specific proposals, too; the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, for instance, said it was opposed to four out of every five bills listed recently in its weekly bill-tracking report. Topping the undesirables seems to be an Illinois Hospital Association proposal to require most employers to provide health care benefits for their workers. Indeed, some 400 trade associations, local chambers of commerce and business firms have formed a "BOMB" coalition — Business Opposed to Mandated Benefits — to fight the plan. Not far behind, however, is other legislation that would grant up to 18 weeks of unpaid family responsibility or medical leave to workers in businesses employing 15 persons or more. That proposal "will almost certainly eliminate jobs, bankrupt companies, and in the long run insure the continued downhill slide of American national competitiveness," warned the Illinois chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business.

And then there are the perennially unpopular measures, like the one that would require state pay plans to be based on comparable worth or another that would increase the minimum wage by $1.30, to $4.65 an hour, over the next two years.

Despite the bitter opposition each of these notions triggers among large segments of the business community, a case could be made that lawmakers may be doing employers a favor by prodding them into offering such programs. Supporting that thesis is a fascinating study by the Illinois Department of Employment Security of the changing demographics of the state's workforce. Titled "Target: 1999," the study offers a peek at the composition of the state's labor force at the dawn of the 21st Century, compared to the portrait of the work force drawn by the 1980 census. What its authors foresee is a need for some 770,000 additional workers to staff the jobs expected to be generated by Illinois economic growth during that 19-year span, now halfway over.

Nor will those new jobs in Illinois mirror past employment patterns, according to the state forecasters. Nearly two-thirds of the growth will be in white-collar occupations, and about one-fifth will be service jobs. The additional workers "must be willing and able to fill professional-level, white-collar jobs, sales positions and clerical jobs," the state study predicts. ' 'But there also must be workers who are willing to accept 'low status' jobs in food service, custodial services and health care delivery."

To fill the additional jobs, employers will have to turn increasingly to women, minorities and immigrants not now in the workforce, the study concludes, because projected growth in the potential labor pool — that is, persons at least 16 years old —falls some 200,000 workers short, even if every additional working-age person were to enter the labor force. That tracks with national projections by U.S. labor officials that women, minorities and immigrants will have to fill eight out of every ten job vacancies during the 1990s.

The most difficult jobs to fill, the state study predicts, will be the low-paid, low status unskilled jobs, in part because candidates for those positions "will have high expectations of the labor market, will be older and have families to support and therefore need more pay than these jobs now offer." Moreover, "the supply of

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new entrants to the labor force and marginally-attached workers (teens and young adults) will have dropped substantially" as the Baby Boom population bulge moves into middle age.

One way to meet the demand for workers, the study suggests, is to alter low-pay, low status, unskilled jobs so that they offer a career path or other benefits that would entice people to take them. That's exactly what could be achieved by ideas like those pending for expanded health insurance coverage, parental and medical leave, comparable worth and a higher minimum wage.

Welfare officials already know that access to medical care can be a determining factor in moving a family off the rolls into an entry-level position; the state now provides former recipients Medicaid coverage for six months, and pending legislation would boost benefits to a full year.

The medical coverage pool envisioned by the hospital association could help the working poor in the same way, while improving productivity and reducing absenteeism among employees who no longer would find preventive health care too costly. Likewise, the right to unpaid leave for medical or parental reasons could help recruit and retain workers with young children, elderly parents or a sick spouse, who otherwise might choose to meet their family responsibilities instead of remaining in an inflexible work situation. And any unskilled job obviously would be easier to fill if the pay were better, either through an increase in the minimum wage or in response to a pay equity plan that placed salaries for jobs held traditionally by women on a par with pay for traditionally male jobs requiring comparable skill, ability or knowledge.

Of course, the state study offers a wide range of suggestions on avoiding the potential 1999 worker shortage. Many of them focus on ways to assure that potential workers receive the skill training needed to enable them to compete and survive in an evolving work place.

Still, don't be surprised if some of the ideas now being denounced so vigorously by the state's business leaders turn out to be prized recruiting tools in years to come.

Charles N. Wheeler III is a correspondent in the Springfield Bureau of the Chicago Sun-Times.

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