Low Literacy Limits Half of Philadlephia Workforce Study Finds:

Low Literacy Limits Half of Phila. Workforce
Study Finds: Many of the working-age adults in the city fall short in math and reading, the research shows.
philly.com: June 28, 2009 by Jane M. Von Bergen

More than half of Philadelphia's working-age adults, about 550,000 people, cannot handle the basic arithmetic and reading necessary to succeed in the majority of jobs in the city.

"If you have low literacy, you have a labor market that doesn't welcome you," said Paul Harrington, a labor economist who created a study of workforce readiness for the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board.

The study will be released tomorrow.

The average Philadelphia score for prose literacy - meaning the ability to read simple instructions and pull some facts out of a paragraph - is 260 out of 500.

Yet people who are health-care technicians, secretaries, teachers, engineers, architects, scientists, computer technicians, drafters, managers, librarians, bankers, insurers, security guards, repairmen, and community organizers - the majority of jobs in Philadelphia - need higher scores, from 277 to 336, to accomplish their tasks.

In Philadelphia, 75 percent of the jobs require that level of literacy. Yet half of Philadelphia's work-age adults cannot handle the tasks.

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While Harrington's study was conducted exclusively for Philadelphia, the U.S. Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics provides some comparisons using 2003 literacy data.

Among the nation's major cities, Philadelphia is about average, with 22 percent of work-age adults achieving only the lowest literacy level. New York and Boston are slightly worse, and the District of Columbia, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston are slightly better. Los Angeles is considerably worse, and Phoenix and Baltimore are considerably better.

The Harrington study of Philadelphia, which marries the 2003 national literacy data with 2005 local demographic information from the U.S. Census, comes at a time when national attention is focused on workplace training as part of President Obama's stimulus plan.

Even though adult literacy is a key component in employment, it sometimes falls through the cracks, said Sallie Glickman, chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > > >Glickman estimates that $12 million a year for seven years (or $84 million) spent on work specific intensive literacy courses would net more than $370 million in taxes and savings in the city as workers earning more would pay more in taxes and would require less of the city services connected with poverty.

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Literacy challenges, said David Donald, chief executive of PeopleShare Inc., a Center City staffing agency, mean that workers cannot find jobs.

"Companies are increasingly requiring people to use a computer just to apply for a job," said Donald, who serves on the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board. "We know some people don't know how to use a computer."

If literacy is a problem for employers, it is a bigger problem for those who cannot read. READ MORE !