Waves of change

Railroad trestle in Spartansburg, PA

The first wave of prosperity to lift New Bedford, Massachusetts, was whaling and related nautical industries.  Through most of the nineteenth century, we lit our homes, streets, and factories with whale oil lamps.  Fortunes were made and New Bedford flourished.  Then, an innocuous event occurred in northwestern Pennsylvania just south of the small town of Titusville.   In the summer of 1859, Col. Edwin Drake drilled the country’s first commercially viable oil well, sealing the fate of the whaling industry.  A spur railway was quickly built from the nearest railhead in Corry, through the Amish village of Spartansburg, and on to Titusville.  Soon, tanker cars steamed eastward carrying petroleum to be processed at former whale oil refineries, at much less cost, risk, and greater profits.  Consumers and the country benefited, but the world’s whaling ports began to wither. 

New Bedford faltered, actually losing population according to the 1870 census, but quickly recovered on a new wave of textile manufacturing.  By the 1880s, the city was growing again, buoyed by robust, expanding textile manufacturing.  It was no secret, however, that former able bodied seamen and harpooners were not necessarily the best loom operators.  A new set of skills was required to become gainfully employed. 

Then, another wave.  By the 1940s, textile manufacturing moved to the southern United States where wages were lower and business burdens lighter.  New Bedford again faltered, but quickly rebounded on the wartime demand for manufacturing.  Tool and die operations sustained the city through the post war years but began to ebb in the 1970s as these products were increasingly supplied by Japan and other countries.

Today, New Bedford’s unemployment rate averages about 10%.  Still a robust fishing port, the employment offered by this industry cannot support the city’s population.  Health care and some limited manufacturing round out the employers, but many of the city’s workers lack the skills for these jobs.

What are the points that may be gleaned from this?  There are several.  First, it seems that waves of change are inevitable, and government can be of little help in assisting us.  We could subsidize whalers, and loom operators, and buggy whip assemblers, but to what effect?  The best that we can do for ourselves, and that government can do for us, is to provide training and skills enhancement.  In our increasingly knowledge-based economy, it is important to be agile, adaptable, and engaged in order to be employable.

Far be it from me to be an expert, but long observation gives me a few suggestions on how to achieve this goal of maximizing employability in an ever-changing economy:

• Be literate in spoken and written English.  While it may be comforting to press 2 for Spanish, that will not help your employability.
• Likewise, be literate with basic mathematics.  Math has to do with logic and reasoning, and will serve you well in many fields.
• Become comfortable with computers and the Internet.  They are the fabric of our information economy. 

How to accomplish these goals?  First, use your local public library.  In addition to supplying books and periodicals, they also provide computers, internet access, and often classes in English proficiency.  Many local high schools offer adult continuing education classes ranging from Photoshop to woodworking to welding.  Potential employers want to see that you have solid, basic skills and are capable of learning new ones.  This is what sets you apart from the permanent minimum wage crowd, who may well be comfortable where they are (which is largely unemployable). 

Titusville, Pennsylvania, suffered the same fate as New Bedford.  Multiple waves of change have washed over her, and her citizens are dumfounded.  Even the few manufacturing jobs that remain require the ability to operate sophisticated CNC milling machines.  The only cure is to rise to your potential, to learn basic English, mathematical, and computer skills, and to mentor those who are struggling.  We are all in this together.