Across Pennsylvania, employers are asking a familiar question: Where are the workers?

It is the wrong question, or at least an incomplete one.

Yes, many employers are struggling to find people with the right skills. Every sector — from finance and manufacturing to healthcare, construction and nonprofits — is competing for skilled talent.

Retirements, demographic shifts and technological change are all putting pressure on the labor market. But if we describe the problem only as a worker shortage, we will keep reaching for short-term fixes. More job postings. More career fairs. More last-minute recruitment. More complaints that graduates are not ready.

Pennsylvania does not simply need more workers. It needs stronger talent partnerships.

That distinction matters. Workforce development does not begin when a student is a senior and an employer has an open position. By then, it is often too late. Students need to understand industries, career pathways and workplace expectations much earlier. Employers need to engage with future talent long before hiring season. Colleges and universities need to connect classroom learning with real problems, real organizations and real professional standards.

The old model is too passive: students take classes, employers post jobs and everyone hopes the match works. That approach may have been adequate when career paths were more predictable, but it is not enough for today’s economy.

A stronger model requires a continuous talent ecosystem. Students should meet employers through internships, mentoring, site visits, applied projects, scholarships, professional conferences and student organizations. Employers should not simply appear at the end of the process to interview candidates. They should help students understand what the workplace actually requires: communication, teamwork, problem solving, professionalism, adaptability and sound judgment.

This is not an argument for turning college into job training. That would be a mistake. Higher education must do more than prepare people for their first job. It should prepare them for a lifetime of learning, leadership and citizenship. Students need critical thinking, ethical reasoning, communication skills and the ability to work across differences.

But we should stop pretending there is a conflict between educating people broadly and preparing them for work. The best education does both.

Students who complete applied projects, shadow professionals, attend conferences or are mentored by alumni gain something classrooms alone cannot provide: confidence, practical judgment and a clearer vision of their future careers.

Those experiences matter because career readiness is built over time. It is not created in a single resume workshop during senior year.

The same is true for employers. The companies that complain least about talent are often the ones that invest early in talent. They host interns. They advise programs. They support student organizations. They show up in classrooms. They help students connect academic learning to industry needs. They do not wait for a perfect candidate to appear. They help develop one.

Pennsylvania has the ingredients to do this well. We have strong colleges and universities, diverse industries, regional chambers, committed employers and communities that care about economic mobility.

What we often lack is coordination and consistency. Too many partnerships are episodic. A company sponsors one event. A faculty member invites one guest speaker. A student attends one networking reception. These are useful, but they are not a system. A talent pipeline cannot depend on chance encounters or individual goodwill alone. It needs structure.

That structure should bring employers into curriculum discussions, colleges into regional economic development, chambers into connector roles, alumni into mentoring and students into active participation.

We also need to measure success differently. A strong talent partnership is not only about how many students are hired in a given year. It is about whether students gain confidence, whether employers build relationships with future talent, whether graduates stay in the region and whether communities become more resilient.

As a business dean, I have seen what happens when these connections work. A student who walks into a room of employers for the first time is often nervous. A student who has done it five times begins to see a future.

Employers begin to see higher education not just as a source of applicants, but as a partner in regional growth. Faculty see how their disciplines live beyond the classroom. Communities benefit when graduates stay, contribute and lead. The responsibility is shared.

Employers cannot remain distant from the education pipeline and then wonder why the pipeline is thin.

Higher education cannot claim to prepare students for the future while ignoring the pace of workplace change. Public and civic leaders cannot talk about economic development without investing in the relationships that develop people.

Pennsylvania’s workforce future will not be solved by one program, one company or one institution. It will be built through sustained partnerships that connect education with opportunity.

So instead of asking only, “Where are the workers?” we should ask a better question: Have we built the partnerships needed to prepare them?

Prasad Vemala is Dean of the newly named Haverlack College of Business at Slippery Rock University and has served in academic leadership roles in the Pittsburgh region for more than a decade.