MinnPost/Jana FreibandChuck Slocum

Minnesota businesses and the groups that advocate on their behalf are advancing policies that indicate that times may be changing.

Finding the right kinds of workers for now and into the future is the focus.

Minnesota’s civilian employment of just under 3 million workers is currently registering a 5.8 percent unemployment rate, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Labor. About two-thirds of all the jobs in Minnesota are in business; the remaining workers are public and nonprofit sector employees.

Many businesses, cautiously confident of an impending economic recovery, report that they have the money for jobs that are being left unfilled due to a lack of qualified applicants. 

Business and public policy

Regarding public-policy issues, business has long been identified with clear positions on state taxes, spending and related “costs of doing business” issues.

In 2012, an array of less predictable issues is gaining priority on the business public-policy agenda. As Gov. Mark Dayton and the Minnesota House and Senate consider the public’s business at the Capitol, the breadth of the issues does foretell some changes.

• Program reform/redesign. Both policymakers and business leaders are getting serious about how the state manages, reviews, measures success and budgets its priorities.  Business, perceived by elected officials as being effective in understanding these kinds of decisions, is coming up with specific ideas for how to focus and stretch the taxpayers’ dollars for optimum results.

• Work force of the future. Aware that demographics, including the pending retirements of the baby boomers, foretell a serious work-force shortage, business is asking government to make significant workforce preparation changes to help fill the gap that will occur as early as 2020.

•  Early Education. Business is offering an array of ideas that support everything from the early learning of age 3 to grade three kids, increased accountability of teachers for the academic performance of the students they teach, to changes in teacher labor relations (pay for performance, elimination of “last in, first out” mandatory rules) and partnerships to achieving the productive lifelong learning of Minnesota’s workforce.

• Light-rail transportation. Through their Chambers and other business groups, business leaders are looking into a transportation future that includes not only roads and bridges and buses but publicly financed light rail systems that will get workers to work in timely and cost effective ways.

• Judicial elections. Many business leaders believe that Minnesota should constitutionally create a new system of electing judges.  The plan would have two components: 1) An independent commission made up of a balanced group of experts who would evaluate judges and issue a public report card, and, 2) A retention election would be conducted, allowing voters to determine whether a judge retains his/her job. A judge would not face a challenger in a retention election.

• Nuclear power. Long a forbidden topic with policymakers, businesses are now publicly backing all types of power generation, including nuclear, hydroelectric and renewable sources to help in getting products to market and workers to work.

The 544,781 companies in Minnesota, of course, do not agree on everything. Still, all of them want to survive and grow in Minnesota and elsewhere while making a profit on their investments.  To be sure, that’s not changed. 

Chuck Slocum is president of The Williston Group, a management consulting firm.  He is a member of the Minnesota and Twin West Chambers of Commerce and surveys regularly the activities of dozens of other local chambers and related business advocacy groups. He can be reached at Chuck [at] WillistonGroup [dot] com.