The headline written by the IEEE claimed that the President Blames Unemployment On Lack of Tech Skills. He did not.
That I agree is not an accurate headline. I posted a separate thread after this one was initially yanked that was titled something along the lines of " Bush's comments regarding employment training”. However, I do think that, since the reporter’s question did mention outsourcing, that the subject is in play – Bush, by not responding to that aspect of it, indicates that his administration has no plans to address it, and an article from the Financial Times of India claims just that – that the Bush Admin will asks states trying to combat outsourcing to back off.
635:
It all depends on who is looking for a job. Let's say the person looking for a job has one skill. He is able to put widget a in hole b. In this job market... not much call for a widget guy. So, $3,000 worth of training will be the difference between his getting hired or not.
With the loss of manufacturing jobs, it might be irrelevant.
Now, meet the average administrative assistant. Good skills on word, good on excel, does good on powerpoint. Laid off due to down sizing... $3,000 will enable that person to be able to include some desktop publishing, maybe some web design... her portfolio is fatter. So the $3,000 has helped.
Considering our floor has all of two admin assistants, and most people do all their own work nowadays, including travel arrangements, and Word does the work of desktop publishing nowadays, I think even that won’t accomplish much.
Now, meet the Kmart employee... He's resume says he can stock shelves. $3,000 may enable him to go to a tech school to learn a skill. That will make him more employable.
I look at machining. It used to pay $40K a year. Now machinists have been laid off in droves.
Vice President of Marketing is downsized. $3,000 isn't going to help him much.
That’s OK, every VP of Marketing I’ve ever known ain’t worth $3,000 anyway.
The IT sector... jobs disappearing overseas...no, $3,000 isn't going to help that person. But, let's be honest, IT workers are a dime a dozen. And in every class I sit in at the university is 1/2 IT or IS or something. But that doesn't justify the outsourcing of jobs.
As I told Southack, my company is actually bucking this trend and is insourcing jobs – as a strategic directive. So we’ll see who wins and who looses, and in the end that’s the best way to arrest the decline – figure out how to make keeping good-paying jobs here in the U.S. a competitive advantage for companies. But our current government policies, IMO, encourage short-term thinking.
652:
Did the economy grow by 2.4% or not...
Over half of that growth was due to increased government spending. That’s not the kind of growth that sustains a solid economy in the long run, nor do I care to have more government employees added to address the unemployment problem.