Rich Froeschle stressed the importance of education and busted a fistful of myths about the global marketplace during his 1½-hour speech during the Central Texas Economic Outlook Conference. Froeschle is deputy director of the Labor Market and Career Information Department of the Texas Workforce Commission.
But, he also emphasized that what educators need to teach to prepare American workers for the competition is fluid, unpredictable.
One notion, he said, is that work will become more project-based, like production of a movie. The skills of multiple disciplines come together for one big thing and then go on to the next big thing.
“What do I teach?” he asked, without answering the question.
Looking at globalization as it is, not as some say it is, he said:
nGlobalization works both ways. In other words, some foreign companies are investing in the United States just as the United States is investing in them.
nMore than half the investments U.S. firms make overseas are in non-bank holding companies or in finance.
nThe industries that create goods in Texas for export out of the country are not creating new jobs.
nJobs growth in Texas is coming in the services sector.
nWhile China and India may be rapidly growing players in the global economy, they have some intrinsic and potentially intractable problems, such as skilled labor shortages, no laws to protect intellectual property, significant poverty and income equality and inadequate infrastructures.
