To solve worker shortage, Dow offers apprenticeships

Fuel Fix ^ | October 23, 2014 | Rhiannon Meyers

[thackney]

Please point me to some of the help wanted ads

You need my help to do a Monster search?

[Sequoyah101]

We have the “Sud America” contingent in a company I work with. Bright enough youngsters but almost zero problem solving skills. Not just the Sud America bunch but many others from around the globe. Very few WASPs. Most classes look like a contingent from the UN. There are PLENTY of Green Cards for technical fields from what I can see. You lead them into a logical progression of ideas, principles, concept and theory but if you expect them to extend that to the next step in a problem solving way... fugeddaboutit. They vapor lock and start hand wringing. Maybe 15% are what I call “connectors” who can link up principles and experience into new solutions and expanded know-how.

I led a group of them yesterday through a procedure that comes to a fork with two options whereupon I said the easiest of the two was A but there are circumstances where B is appropriate and B is a bolt on of what I had taught them only a couple of weeks before. Lost.
Q: If B is faster why isn’t that preferred?
A: You aren’t ready for it and it has more risk.
Q: How do we do B?
A: Refer to what you were taught two weeks ago.
Q: Why don’t you teach it now? A: Time and need.
Q: But what do we do if we need to use B?
A: Call me, I’ll do it for you.

If it isn’t cookbook and there isn’t a spreadsheet and there isn’t an app .... it is going almost nowhere.

[Sequoyah101]

these are good, usually long lasting, steady jobs. The “refinery and chemical” zones where these plants are are full of nice homes with man-cave barns and boats and campers and people with vacation time to use them and what appear to be prosperous retirees.

[Vigilanteman]

Very true, especially in the IT field. I’m not sure how many others it has penetrated.

[WayneS]

I humbly apologize for getting ethanol and ethylene confused in my joke.

[JoeFromSidney]

In the summer after my freshman year in college I took a job in a steel mill. I ended up working with the brick-layer gang in the open hearth part of the mill. The workers rebuilt the furnaces after each heat of steel, and lined the big ladles with firebricks when they were eroded away. The mill had an apprentice program for brick-layers. There were a lot of young guys in the apprentice program, and they had a career track ahead of them as bricklayers in the mill. Unfortunately for them, brickwork in a steel mill is different from brickwork in construction, so they couldn't get jobs as bricklayers outside the steel industry. However, once they finished their apprenticeships, the pay was good and they'd have jobs as long as the plant existed.

The apprentices were mostly high school graduates, with a smattering of college graduates. I was one of the few literate men among the bricklayers, so they made me timekeeper. It was really a "nothing" job, just keeping records and pushing paper, but it was something I could do easily. However, there was no future in it. Had I stayed with it, I could never have become a supervisor because I lacked bricklaying skill. The apprentices, even though many of them could have handled the job, wouldn't have wanted the job. They wanted the career track as a bricklayer, eventually leading to supervisory position.

I returned to college at the end of the summer. However, I consider that job to have been an important part of my "out of school" education.

[thackney]

how do they expect anyone to be qualified in that field without hiring them and training them? I really do not believe they thought that schools would do that for them.

Actually, companies like Dow Chemical work with schools to get the specific training available. Those motivated enough to take the class and smart enough to pass the class then make for a more successful employee.

Fast Start Training
http://www.dow.com/careers/faststart.htm

Dow, like other companies dependent on a talented and innovative workforce, has a responsibility to use its expertise and resources to make the workforce stronger. We believe that public-private partnerships are critical to the developing and sustaining the workforce of the 21st Century. Dow’s contributions to the Fast Start training program are helping ensure that community colleges can act quickly to train employees in the skills they need to meet the needs of local manufacturers.

[khelus]

There are 95 million unemployed in this country, there is no shortage.

Thank-you

Every one of these we can't find Americans who and and will do job x, what is over looked is the millions of umemployed often with experience in the same or related field.

The articles play on the fact that over time the quality of school graduates has been purposed lowered, ignoring the massive number of proven unemployed.

also overlooked is rampant age discrimination.

In my experience CHEAP illegal and legal immigrants displace americans every time. In IT many of those who still have jobs, have either not had a raise in years or taken a salary cut as a condition of continued employment because all in IT are up against CHEAP desperate illegals and legal guest workers.

[GeronL]

These companies need to train employees because the schools are not going to do it for them.

[Milton Miteybad]

My statement was probabilistic. It was not an assertion.

I'll take "Your statement was probably an assertion" for $1,000, Alex. ;-)

Median base salary for a Refinery Operator II in Houston appears to be $58,600, with benefits bringing total annual compensation to $87,900. And $58,600 in Houston is equal to about $75,000 per year on the coasts because of the much more reasonable cost of living. Not bad for an occupation requiring a high school diploma plus some OJT. Has that salary kept up with inflation? Looks like they're doing as well or better than most other industrial occupations.

[Moonman62]

Please point me to some of the help wanted ads

You need my help to do a Monster search?

...

It would be nice if you could help since you’re the one with the inside knowledge.

[thackney]

Tell you what, maybe you should call up Dow Chemical, explain to them they are wasting money on an apprenticeship program, and help them with their advertising. I’m sure they need the help, they haven’t been doing this very long, only 117 years. They’ve only managed to hire about 53,000 people for their current workload.

1-800-523-3945

[MrB]

Oh, that’s quite alright.

I was going for the “over the top” humor of pointing out the difference in the chemical structure between the two substances that you inconsequentially mistook for each other.

[khelus]

Very true, especially in the IT field. I’m not sure how many others it has penetrated.

I's wager most, if not all technical and medical fields plus many others.

Listed below are some of the jobs that H-1B visas are being issued for.

• Accountants and Administrators
• Executives, Managers, Administrators
• Software programmers and computer scientists
• All engineers and Technicians
• Research Associates and Scientists
• Lawyers and Tax Analysts
• Teachers and college professors
• Postdocs and Fellows
• Sports Instructors and Physiologists
• Doctors, Nurses, Med-Techs, Therapists, Pharmacists
• Surgical and Dental Assistants
• Fashion models, Secretaries, Clerks
• Architects, Musicians, and Artists
• Youth Counselors, Day Care, and Cashiers
• The List Goes ON and ON and ON and ON ..................

www.zazona.com

[Moonman62]

If the compensation is good, why are they having trouble finding people? I assume that working in a refinery entails risk, is physically demanding and requires shift work. I would like to see what they actually offer to entice people into the profession.

[WayneS]

No problem. I understood what you were up to.

But...

...seriously, now, doesn’t a 101 Proof Bourbon cracker sound delicious?

[MrB]

Dunno about that...

Reminds me of a time when some friends decided to use their carbonator on some Jack Daniels...

They said that the subsequent burps burned terribly.

[thackney]

Not just people, skilled people.

They don’t need bodies. They need people to complete specific tasks. Task that are more than common sense and inherently intuitive.

[Moonman62]

So in other words, you’re going to make claims, but you’re not going to back them up. That tells me there is probably truth to my speculation. This is another way for big corporations to cheap out on compensation. It’s not a traditional apprentice program.

[thackney]

Yeah, you go with that.

I’ll continue working in the same industry that pays very well.

Have a nice day, God Bless.