Technological change, global competition, and a protracted economic downturn combined to usher in and hasten a new era in manufacturing. The digitally integrated factory, where machines are computer controlled, production is digitally connected to suppliers and customers, and all aspects of operation are constantly monitored and analyzed, requires workers with a new and emerging array of skills. This study analyzes data on occupational skill requirements and employment projections and combines it with insights gleaned from a series of focus groups and follow-on interviews with manufacturers across Ohio to explore current and projected workforce challenges faced by manufacturers. One key finding that emerges from the data and focus group responses is a broader understanding of the considerable engineering and technology skills associated with several occupations critical to manufacturing operations.
This research examines the distribution of STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and soft-skill competencies in occupations within regional economies in the United States. This research explores the public policy question: Do occupational competencies offer a better measure of regional human capital than the commonly used metric of educational attainment? Policy makers at all levels of government have increasingly emphasized STEM education as vital to economic well-being. This research finds support for the importance of STEM occupational competencies to regional median wage and productivity, but findings also indicate the important contributions of “soft skills” to regional economic well-being. This suggests new avenues for region-focused training and human capital development aligned to occupational skill demands that reward workers and benefit regions.
Centuries of practice and an array of public health literature support social distancing (SD), or selfquarantine, as a valuable nonpharmaceutical intervention. To convince individuals to engage in behaviors that limit infection, public health professionals communicate risk and hazard based on application of protection motivation theory (PMT). The COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to explore the efficacy of PMT in the context of a novel coronavirus with unique public health implications. We test an integrative conceptual model of social distancing compliance in U.S. counties and examine the mediating impact of SD on community spread of infection. We find that PMT does impact individual behavior, observing that the proportion of vulnerable populations affects social distancing compliance. However, actions to protect individual health are made within the context of economic concerns and priorities. While results indicate that PMT influences behavior, the expected relationship between that behavior and spread of disease in the community is not found. We do not repudiate SD or the value of PMT, but we suggest that these results may indicate that communication of risk in the context of COVID-19 may need community, as well as individual, framing.
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