New Jersey is missing out on a rich lode of energy, talent and creativity, yet we've been doing little to stem the loss.

A new report commissioned by the New Jersey Business & Industry Association confirmed last week what many insiders have long believed and feared: that members of the millennium generation are leaving the state more rapidly than they're pouring in.

The grim truth revealed in the study is that our state ranks as the worst in the country in terms of losing high-school graduates to other locales.

Millennials are defined as people born between the early 1980s and 2000 - a group estimated at about 70 million strong nationwide.

According to the task force, more than 1 million of their peers said "goodbye" to the Garden State and "hello" to greener employment pastures between 2007 and 2016 - a substantially greater number than the 866,506 who came here to find (or take) jobs.

This outmigration means we're taking a hefty loss on the $20,000 the state taxpayers shell out every year per public-school pupil.

And because college graduates traditionally find positions near their alma maters, N.J. employers are also being denied some of the finest minds of a generation to fill vital jobs.

Fortunately, members of the task force went beyond merely reciting these statistics. They also took a stab at recommending ways to address New Jersey's pitiful record.

Some of their suggestions are fairly easy to implement, including more robustly promoting the lucrative job opportunities available here, and encouraging teachers and guidance counselors to help students beef up their resume-writing and other job-hunting skills (which they should be doing anyway).

Others, such as proposing a bond designed to raise funds for expanding vocational-technical facilities, will entail an act of the state Legislature. And still others, including bringing down the soaring price tag of a college education in New Jersey, demand a commitment by the state that it has not yet been willing to make.

"Millennials are facing unprecedented college debt as tuition rates continue to rise while state funding for public colleges and universities has decreased significantly over the past 25 years," the report said.

The report concludes that we simply aren't doing enough to promote New Jersey as a desirable place for people in their 20s and 30s to go to college, raise a family and pursue a challenging career.

We agree that it's going to be tough for us to shed our reputation as the punch line for every late-night comedian and two-bit stand-up comic.

But the business leaders have just given us a well-designed map for getting there. Now let's hope their colleagues and our lawmakers have the wisdom to head down some of those roads.

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