20110411-NEWS--1-NAT-CCI-CL_--
4/8/2011
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VOL. 32, NO. 15
$1.50/APRIL 11 - 17, 2011
Boomers’ retirements raise skilled labor worry
Housing values at decade-ago levels, may stay
Manufacturers fear shortage of workers
One data analyst predicts a ‘long, protracted bottom’; Cleveland down 22% from peak
By DAN SHINGLER dshingler@crain.com
By STAN BULLARD sbullard@crain.com
This is the year the baby boomers start to retire in earnest — 65 years after the World War II generation began producing the baby bubble in 1946 — and it’s a pig in the python that has many manufacturers worried. They aren’t fretting so much about paying for that generation’s retirement. The main concern is that they’ll lose valuable employees and they don’t believe they can find enough suitable replacements from Gens X, Y or Z. “It’s a serious situation, and as you look at the number of positions that are going to be open in five years, it looks even more serious,” said Don Johnson, vice president of Advanced Technology Services in Peoria, Ill., which maintains production equipment for manufacturers nationwide. Advanced Technology and Nielsen Co. recently surveyed more than 100 U.S. manufacturers and found companies are bracing for the cost of losing the skilled labor that baby boomers provide. Seventy-six percent of the respondents with revenues of $1 billion or less said the loss of those workers will cost them at least $1 million to $10 million over the next five years — and 34% of See BOOMERS Page 9
After listing his Westlake home last November for $340,000 and cutting the price twice, Charles Grace in late February sold for $285,000 the four-bedroom English Tudor he bought from a builder for $300,000 in 1991. Almost as tough to swallow as the home’s lack of appreciation after 20 years was the $15,000 in updates he put into the house at his agent’s request to ready it for sale. “The sale was a success, although it was a dismal situation,” said Dr. Grace, an Eaton Corp. retiree who
INSIDE: How home values in Cleveland and some of its suburbs have fared since 2000. Page 25 holds a doctorate in engineering and a law degree. “I had a boss once who said, ‘Get the job done.’ I got the job done.” As Dr. Grace’s experience indicates, and numbers from housing market data providers confirm, home values in Northeast Ohio have returned to what they were a decade ago and beyond. Stan Humphries, chief economist for online real estate data provider Zillow, calls the 2000s the lost See VALUES Page 25
JESSE KRAMER
Charles Grace stands in front of the Westlake house he sold in February — for less than he paid for it in 1991.
INSIDE The zoo goes big
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The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is preparing to move five elephants — like Shenga here — into their new home, the $25 million African Elephant Crossing. Read Tim Magaw’s story on Page 3.
UH cancer center unites care, eases capacity concern By TIMOTHY MAGAW tmagaw@crain.com
As Linda Mangosh walked the freshly painted halls of University Hospitals’ new $260 million cancer hospital, she said that one day she hopes the sprawling facility could be converted to care for some other kind of disease.
Ideally, with the help of UH’s team of researchers and clinicians, the deadly disease would become a notion of the past. But until then, the new facility — known as the Seidman Cancer Center — will ease the capacity issues facing UH’s adjacent Case Medical Center and consolidate the health system’s cancer care into one building.
“All aspects of care will be under one roof,” said Ms. Mangosh, the cancer center’s vice president of operations. “This makes it much more comfortable for (the patients) and takes away the anxiety.” UH executives said the 120-bed, 375,000-square-foot center wasn’t necessarily built to capture additional market share or to go head-
See UH Page 8
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to-head with the Cleveland Clinic’s cancer program, but rather to address the system’s capacity issues. When the hospital opens in early June, 80 cancer patients will be transferred from Case Medical Center to the new facility. Dr. Nathan Levitan, president of the Seidman Cancer Center, said