Outsourcing of jobs -- that's something that now is beginning to affect not just blue-collar workers but white-collar employees even in such "safe" fields as hospitals and banks. At the same time, $630 million in federal and state funds are being pumped into job-training programs in Pennsylvania (including $107 million into southwestern Pennsylvania).

		Clarke Thomas is a Post-Gazette senior editor (clt34@pitt.edu).

My question is: How do we know that we are not training people for jobs that may be outsourced in five years? I remember the 1980s when many dislocated steelworkers received training as heating and air-conditioning technicians, which became a blind alley because of oversupply.

I've come up with two broad conclusions. First, for employees: "It's up to you, friend, to prepare yourself against outsource-caused failure." Second, fortunately, there is a growing effort to fashion training programs to help people avoid that problem, including tightened funding accountability.

In the larger sphere, says Donald F. Smith Jr., "We are starting to see outsourcing affect more than just the lowest skill jobs." Even supervisory jobs are being shipped to India, China and South Africa. Smith, director of economic development for both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, believes that "the [counter] strategy nationally, not just in Pittsburgh, has to be to move skills up the value chain to maintain our standard of living."

That means, Smith adds, investment in innovation complexes with industry and universities working together in such fields as biotechnology, information technology and nanotechnology to foster cutting-edge industries and train the workers for them.

It's important to insert here that there are many skills that cannot be outsourced. Nursing is one example. Also, as Stephen Mitchell, director of Workforce Connections, graphically puts it, you can't outsource "fix my toilet." The same plumber imperative goes for painters, carpenters, welders and electricians -- a reason that technical training institutions offer such good bets for stable jobs.

But what about the employee wondering whether his or her job is bound for overseas? That brings us back to the employee helping determine her or his fate. As Smith puts it, "This shows the importance of lifelong learning. No longer can you go through one training program, get skills and apply them the rest of your career. You constantly have to upgrade your skills."

Person after person interviewed stressed what they called "marketable skills" -- reading, writing, math, computer and the communication abilities needed to work with others when so much activity is team-based. Barry Maciak says employees need to develop customer-service skills, using every job as a stepping stone to the next level. Maciak is executive director of the Institute for Economic Transformation at Duquesne University.

If this sounds like the old "liberal arts" advice given to college students, what about the graduate with such a degree who finds he or she has no definable skill for entering the job market? Mitchell of Workforce Connections, which is part of the Pennsylvania Economy League, says the future may lie with business "boot camps," such as one the University of Virginia offers to provide basic business savvy for recent liberal arts graduates.

A route that has emerged locally is that of "certification." As described by Susan Kinsey, both undergraduates and people already in the workforce can take a set of courses -- including at night school -- in any of several fields and receive a certificate helpful if a career switch becomes necessary. Kinsey, dean of the College of General Studies at Pitt, says, "The idea is that people can confront a change in the work force without the panic of suddenly having to go back to school." Pitt's six graduate schools are involved in the program, which provides a liberal arts background applicable in such fields as health care, information sciences, hospitality, financial services and life sciences. Duquesne, Chatham College and Carlow University have similar programs.

An article in the March 10 New York Review of Books suggests that to support those who lose permanent jobs because of global competition, "unemployment benefits should be adapted to support [them] and they should receive health care and pension benefits. Ideally, education, perhaps in the form of improved access to community colleges, should also be made easily available and affordable for those who lose their jobs because of global competition."

Meanwhile, a particularly important development is coming out of a Rendell administration initiative to spend $112 million (including $22.8 million for the state's community colleges) on various kinds of job-training initiatives. Sandi Vito, the state's deputy secretary for workforce development, explains, "This budget targets education and training for careers that are in demand for employers in our most competitive industries."

She adds that accountability is an important component -- making sure that funding doesn't go into training for jobs that may vanish and, second, "making certain that a worker walks away from training with a solid skill base and credentials that show it."

The funding will go for (1) upgrading skills of "incumbent" workers, that is, those already on the job, (2) training for dislocated workers, (3) career counseling for high school students since a diploma no longer carries the weight it once did, starting with 81 pilot projects across the state, (4) a program for high school students for post-high advanced credits in technical subjects, similar to the pre-college A.P. program in the liberal arts, as well as (5) enabling programs for people going off welfare.

"It used to be the goal was a high school degree. Then came the GI Bill. And now we have to invest in the knowledge base of workers," says Vito. "You can't compete with Bangladesh on wages; it has to be added value."

An endeavor in which, I conclude, government, educators, employers and, especially, employees and future employees themselves must participate if we are to cope with the outsourcing challenge.