Creating more jobs and attracting new employers are rallying cries for many of our city's political and civic leaders. To ensure Philadelphia is seen as a premier location for business and industry leaders, our city needs to provide the workers necessary to fuel today's dynamic knowledge-based economy. Along with making the tax and government infrastructure friendly to business and improving public education, a key step to attracting more employers is building a worker base with the right knowledge, skills, and abilities to help businesses grow and prosper.

Philadelphia has traditionally been a city that works. It is a proud, working-class town - a place where a good job with a good paycheck could often be found in the neighborhood. But, while the skeletons of our factories, industries, and economic prosperity remain, the thousands of jobs they provided no longer exist. Consider this: thirty-years ago one in four jobs in Philadelphia was in manufacturing. Today, one in twenty jobs is in manufacturing and these positions require a great deal of skill and education.

Ideas now drive the economy. Today 70% of jobs created in the U.S. require a post-secondary degree. Yet, 20% of our resident's left high school without graduating (that's 203,000 adults in the city who do not have a diploma), and only 23% of our residents have college degrees.

While the impacts of globalization and technology have forced businesses to rapidly advance and evolve, we have not invested the resources necessary for our people to keep pace. As a result, only 60% of our city's residents are working or looking for work, placing Philadelphia 94th out of the nation's largest 100 cities in labor force participation.

In the coming years new opportunities will emerge. Baby boomers will soon be retiring and research suggests there will be 120,000 additional vacancies in the city at higher level managerial and professional jobs.

To meet this challenge and capitalize on new employment and economic opportunities, we must unite to prepare our people with the skills they need so we can all be successful. Philadelphia's residents can be its greatest economic asset.

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