Rick Haglund: When in-demand talent can work from anywhere, what will happen to Michigan?


https://michiganadvance.com/2021/11/...n-to-michigan/

“Place need business. Business needs talent and talent wants place,” said Public Policy Associates Chair Jeff Padden, a quote he attributed to Rob Fowler, who retires next month as CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan.
“If you don’t get place right, there’s nothing you can do in economic development to save you from failure,” Padden told me.

We can see this in the auto industry, which is looking to hire thousands of software engineers in its historic transition to electric vehicles.

While metro Detroit is still the nation’s auto engineering capital, automakers will place many of these new jobs in Silicon Valley; Denver; Seattle; and Austin, Texas, and other hip cities where software talent is concentrated.

The COVID pandemic has shown that high-education attainment workers can perform their jobs from just about anywhere, and many are doing them from where they want to live, not where their employers’ cubicle farms are located.

That presents a difficult challenge for states like Michigan that are rapidly aging and not seen as “cool,” except for the winter temperatures.

State Senate Economic and Small Business Development Committee Chair Ken Horn [[R-Frankenmuth) recently told me he thinks Michigan will need 1 million more residents to fill existing jobs from rapidly retiring Baby Boomers and new jobs that state employers want to create.