If a recent Georgetown University study is correct, Maine will lack the skilled workers needed for the jobs available in 2018, when economists predict the nation will have recovered from the recession. The Maine Department of Labor says the study echoes its own findings.

John Dorrer, director of the Maine Center for Work Force Research & Information, says employers will soon need more highly-skilled workers with degrees and specific training, but people will have trouble paying for those degrees.

"Being able to afford a college education is going to become more problematic," Dorrer says. "And particularly it's going to become more problematic for low-income and middle-income wage earners in this country."

The Georgetown study does not predict unfilled positions, but focuses instead on Maine's need for more high school and college graduates. It says that between 2008 and 2018, new jobs in Maine requiring education and training above the high school level will grow by 15,000, while jobs for high school graduates and dropouts will grow only by about 2,000.

Nationally, the study points to a deficit of 300,000 college graduates every year for the next decade. The study also takes into account Maine's aging population, noting that during the same period, 196,000 vacancies will open due to retirement and new job creation.

"Being the aging state I think puts us in a more vulnerable position because we are going to have to figure out how to replace basically the most skilled labor force that we've ever had on the field."

Dorrer says students in Maine need to take college course work seriously and focus on getting degrees that are in high demand. Those are found in the areas of business, science, technology and engineering.

The Georgetown study also indicates pay no longer correlates directly with the amount of postsecondary schooling a person has. It says about a third of people with certificates or two-year degrees now earn more than the average income of a person with a four-year degree.

"People who can adapt, who can learn, who can grow, that's where the emphasis has got to be placed," Dorrer says. "We need a higher level of competance all the way around. And I daresay this is not just the level of college-level workers, that is increasingly something that is in demand in the labor market, period."

Dorrer says he continues to meet with education and university officials to emphasize the data and the need to align high school, college and university programs with expected jobs. Efforts to reach the Georgetown researchers who published the study were not successful.