[count-your-change]

The city of Lafayette, Indiana, just across the river from West Lafayette and Purdue University has been fortunate to have a wide variety of manufacturing jobs and has been willing to train people for those jobs instead of complaining about the lack of skilled workers.

Part one of this article can be found at: www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local/blue-collar-comeback-part-one

[count-your-change]

see: http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local/blue-collar-comeback-part-two

[thecodont]

Mike Rowe of ‘Dirty Jobs’ wants to promote blue-collar work

http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/18/news/economy/mike_rowe_dirty_jobs/index.htm

[PGR88]

"The biggest challenge we've had is finding the skilled labor to fill those jobs,"

Wrong! The biggest challenge is finding someone who can pass a drug test and will show up on-time for more than 3 days in a row.

[R. Scott]

Once those tasks are complete, applicants then go through an eight-week program requiring 20 hours a week of classroom study at Ivy Tech.

This used to be fairly common. We even had a good industrial arts program in high school way back when.

[Alberta's Child]

Very interesting story. Let's face it, folks. Universities and Occupy Wall Street protests are filled with people -- mainly young men -- who probably would have been better off learning a trade and learning a strong work ethic.

Learning the trade isn't even that critical. An intelligent person with a strong work ethic who is willing to learn can be taught a lot of things fairly quickly.

This article reflects what I've seen in a number of different industry publications for manufacturing, warehousing and freight transportation. As bizarre as it may seem in an era of high unemployment, a lot of industries are facing a serious labor shortage in blue-collar positions.