Philadelphia's residents are its greatest untapped asset.
Attracting more employers and creating more jobs are rallying cries for many of our city’s political and civic leaders. But for Philadelphia to be seen as a premier location for today’s business and industry leaders, it needs to develop workers to meet the demands of 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 developing the employee base that those employers depend upon.
Philadelphia has traditionally been a city that works, 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. Today’s employment opportunities demand a good work ethic and post-secondary education. Ideas now drive the economy. New knowledge-based jobs require education for entrance and advancement. They demand complex problem solving skills, skills that individuals learn beyond high school, yet few Philadelphians have more than a high school education and out of the country’s 100 largest cities, Philadelphia is 92nd in its percentage of college educated residents.
While the impacts of globalization and a knowledge-based economy govern business, we’re behind in adapting to and preparing a workforce that can compete and support our growth in this new dynamic environment. And most of the people who will be in our workforce 20 years from now, are already working age.
Current figures show that only 55% of our city’s residents are working or looking for work, placing Philadelphia 96th out of the nation’s largest 100 cities in labor force participation. Many baby boomers will soon be retired, and there exists only an unprepared, undereducated, and disengaged workforce to take their place.
There is an untapped pool of workers in Philadelphia. We must understand that successful economic development will stem from developing our people. Philadelphia’s residents can be its greatest economic asset.
Philadelphia rankings are based on the 2000 Census, as analyzed by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.
Data & Publications
It could go either way.
Read A Tale of Two Cities — a report portraying Philadelphia’s human capital challenge as latent economic opportunity.
» Download the report
» Spanish version
