The good news was that some of those 750 lost jobs will be replaced by 1,100 new ones, but, of course, they are not the same jobs, illustrating the imperative for both companies and communities to “grow, change, or die.”
Jobs lost to the recession of the last two years now total more than 27,000 in the 13-county Louisville Metropolitan Area, with nearly 65,000 people among the unemployed.
In an essay in the March edition of The Atlantic Monthly, managing editor Don Peck wrote about the reality that jobs lost in this recession will be long and slow coming back. He cited a national survey that found that 44% of families in America had experienced a job loss, reduction in hours, or pay cut in the past year.
Peck quoted labor economist Gary Burtless from the Brookings Institution who says that the new jobs that will come open will have different skill requirements than the old ones. “In a sense,” Burtless said, “every time someone’s laid off now, they need to start all over. They don’t even know what industry they’ll be in next.”
The Humana jobs will be replaced by new positions focused on web-based tools and designing new approaches to health management. That shift in one of Louisville’s major employers vividly illustrates why building skills and flexibility is so critical – and the link between skills and 21st Century jobs is the key to what will happen for Louisville and every other city in America.