Posted on 02/09/2011 6:46:33 PM PST by beaversmom
“We don’t build that here anymore.” The words hung in the air like fog. I heard the same statement repeated by many of the small businesses we profiled on the “John Ratzenberger’s Made in America” series on Travel Channel.
Despite amazing innovations and inspired workers, the tragic reality is that American industry and trades are under assault from within — we don’t have enough skilled workers to make America work anymore. Many companies are literally begging workers to come on board, offering well-paying, high-skilled work and training just to stay afloat.
The most popular phrase in today’s political lexicon is “job creation.” Americans of all persuasions are demanding that something be done about jobs. Seeking a fast fix, leaders in Washington and in the states are offering up tax cuts, low interest rates, and the promise of “green jobs,” all of which have some merit.
But in an American economy that’s losing its industrial base, “fast fixes” won’t prevent the coming tide of job loss and the entire culture of American productivity that goes with skilled work. The impact will be devastating.
The average age of a skilled worker in the U.S. is 55. Credible statistics from the U.S. Labor Department and elsewhere suggest that somewhere between 3 million and 15 million jobs go unfilled due to skilled worker shortages. Every major sector is affected, from crane operators and welders to high-tech producers and health care providers. We’re talking about trillions of lost dollars and a repositioning of America as a debtor-consumer, rather than the global leader-producer. This is the perfect storm.
Some critics have said that the American economy is too resilient to fold, and that we will innovate our way out of the “old” manufacturing economy and into a bright and shiny future in which Americans will find new ways to work and produce. I enjoy “first principle” discussions as much as the next guy. But these discussions have little value when America is staring down the barrel of a failing economy, crumbling infrastructure, and a workforce made up of college graduates and unskilled labor.
I prefer to focus on what is, rather than what might be. The warning lights are blinking on overdrive — America is in trouble. We need a long-term effort to educate, train, and deploy America’s skilled workforce. We have very little time to get this right.
We are currently producing a documentary and education program, “Industrial Tsunami,” for national release in early 2012. In “Industrial Tsunami,” I will showcase programs across the nation that are providing hands-on, meaningful training to a new generation of Americans. There are some terrific efforts underway, primarily in the private sector, to bring skills to young people. Bradley Tech high school in Milwaukee is a prime example — high-tech and practical skills taught by professionals alongside excellent academics. This is promising. But there’s more that needs to be done to right the ship.
It starts with kids. We must foster the love of tinkering and the self-reliance and creativity that come with it. The old “shop class” model has essentially disappeared. Let’s develop and promote hands-on learning at home and in schools.
Government needs to help; in some respects, it can do so best by simply getting out of the way. Too often, regulations are disconnected from good intentions and become economic roadblocks with little social value. Add to that a lawsuit-crazy culture that makes every job and activity a liability waiting to happen. Government policies that drive young people into a “college or failure” mindset make skilled work career choices a practical impossibility.
ping
I bumped this up to Front Page. If anyone has any complaints, Freepmail me.
No, it starts with making RIGHT TO WORK the law. The twin evils of unionism and multiculturalism (affirmative action, set asides and laws favoring homosexual deviants) are business killers and thus are job killers.
Government needs to help???They destroyed America!
Thanks :)
Many companies are literally begging workers to come on board, offering well-paying, high-skilled work and training just to stay afloat.
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Color me dubious.
it can do so best by simply getting out of the way
Quite a large range in that estimate, and I don't believe it for a second. And I don't believe for a second that there are not adequate numbers of Americans willing to train for good paying jobs. We see the occasional immigration raid on restaurant chains and slaughter houses where hundreds of illegals are removed from jobs, then large numbers of Americans apply for and fill the jobs within no time at all.
17% - 18% real unemployment, yet they can't find qualified trainees for millions of high paying jobs?
But that absurd range from 3 - 15 million unfilled jobs throws the entire claim into question. Some pretty imprecise estimates involved there.
There are many reasons for this. One big reason is the abandonment of trades education in the public schools. Not only do they not teach it, it is not seen as a respectable career path.
Begin with these.
The producers are no longer a class to be fleeced for the rest. Get rid of the stranglehold the bunny huggers have on the government.
And it won't matter for the rest of his life what trades he knows NO ONE WILL EVER HIRE HIM FOR THAT BECAUSE it just never occurs to anyone that a college grad might well have apprenticed for a craft or licensed skilled occupation.
Like the writer thought there would be only unskilled labor and college graduates at some future time.
The only thing that set us back in the traditional program that got folks through college was the speculation in housing ~ too many "everybody gotta' have a house" fanatics, jobs for latinos and property speculators conspired to give us an 11 million unit overhang.
Yup, we now have 11 million empty houses in this country ~ you could house 5 or 6 people in each with comfort.
At today's rate of new housing starts, that'd be good for 22 years!
I don't think there's ever been a nation in history that had a 22 year housing overhang.
To get there we gave the college kids loans ~ so they didn't have to work at the trades to get through school ~ imported every criminal in latin America, and wiped out the savings of a lifetime for almost every family in the nation.
We have a 9% raw unemplyment rate, with 19% underemployed on top of that. There are no new jobs. There are no construction jobs. College tuition continues to increase.
To be fair, they do have a vocational school option for 11th and 12th graders--at least they did when I went to school in the district. I hope it gets promoted because not every person it cut out to go to college.
When I was 41 years old, I was laid-off from the engineering department at a nuclear plant. That was in 1993.
Could not find work for two years. Why? I was told I was over-qualified for nearly everything.
What was really outrageous about that time, 1993 - 1995, is that hundreds of thousands of U.S. electrical and computer engineers were unemployed, but the high-tech firms insisted on hiring foreign engineers, newly graduated.
Reading this article reminded me of that.
We have too many unskilled people (the brighter ones need to be taught skills) and college graduates who don't want to run a lathe, say, or fix HVAC systems, but not skilled workers.
That can be fixed if the educations system forgets about 'women's studies' and 'black studies', re-emphasizes vocational training.
The lack of trained/skilled workers is at total lie.
And why should age be an issue. I know there is a bias against hiring a tech worker over 40, but it is stupidity of youthful managers and recruiters.
I am 63 and have no desire to retire, but have been unemployed for quite a while. Had a similar spell when I was 55. Good for another 15 years for the right circumstances, but we shall see how that is going to work out.
The article is bunk.
It’s seen as more respectable to go to college and then law school and to become a community organizer than to work as a machinist in a factory.
Rush was talking about a report he’d read that said on its own, American manufacturing would be the third largest economy in the world. Big plants are closing but manufacturing is taking place in smaller businesses throughout the USA.
“it can do so best by simply getting out of the way “
John Galt
(good post)
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