Just another example of political correctness and misplaced priorities in our “government schools.”
In my current job, I’m actively involved in workforce development and employee training. All of the figures cited in the article are true; there are more than 500,000 high-tech manufacturing jobs that can’t be filled because most American workers lack the education and skills. And they can’t be filled by illegals coming across the southern border, though you can find some qualified candidates through legal immigration and targeted recruitment.
This problem has been building for a generation. First, we took shop and vocational classes out of our schools in favor of self-esteem training and other worthless subjects. Then we de-emphasized math and science in middle and high schools.
I taught seventh grade for three years after retiring from the military; my subjects were history and career studies, but I helped tutor in math. In our school (a poor district in the south), we had scores of students who couldn’t do three-column addition and subtraction, let alone multiply or divide. If you haven’t mastered those basic skills by middle school (where I taught), you will never learn algebra and geometry, which are required for many of the high-tech manufacturing training programs. And with the dumbing-down of science curricula, very few high school grads have the basic knowledge of electricity and physics required for advanced manufacturing.
And it gets even worse; many of the young skulls full of mush lack basic “work” skills, i.e., no one has ever taught them you’re supposed to show up for work on time, properly dressed and follow the instructions from your boss. So, various community colleges are charging employers to train their entry-level workers on basic work skills.
There was an interesting article in “The New York Times” (oddly enough) about various government programs to train workers for vocational and industrial jobs. The Times found a couple of reports that determined many of the programs are missing the mark, because they are not focused on the needs of industry, or have low completion and placement rates.
There are a few good programs that produce trained workers with the right skills. Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia has operated an apprentice school for almost 100 years. The school trains young people in the various trades associated with building naval vessels; the apprentices get classroom training and on-the-job experience and they’re paid while they are in school. After two years, graduates are qualified for entry-level jobs and they are not required to go to work for Newport News Shipbuilding. Most do, however, and the company has a 10-year retention rate (among grads) of roughly 80%.
I disagree.
We need to pay what a job requires.
There are (plenty) of Americans throughout our entire nation, who do not have jobs. Tens of millions of Americans.
Americans who have tried everything, and eventually gave up. The problem is, we are playing the “Chinese labor” card far, far, far too much. This is the problem.
China. We need to compete with China.
We need to do something to protect jobs, right here in America.
What, I do not know, but we cannot continue to compete with China as things stand, so we continue to lose, and lose, and lose.
If this continues, China will simply take over. Everything.
Even militarily.
America needs to look out for ourselves.
That means, we need to support American manufacturing.
Bring back US jobs.