| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Economy | |
| Skills gap hobbles US employers | |
| 2011-12-14 | |
| Drew Greenblatt has been looking for more than a year for three sheet-metal set-up operators to work day, night or weekend shifts. The president of Marlin Steel Wire Products, a company in Baltimore with 30 employees, Mr Greenblatt says his inability to find qualified workers is hampering his business’s growth. “If I could fill those positions, I could raise our annual revenues from $5m to $7m,” he says.
Mr Greenblatt’s predicament speaks to one of the biggest economic debates about today’s 8.6 per cent US unemployment rate: is it merely a cyclical problem that will shrink as demand recovers? Or is it something deeper and more structural, a “mismatch” between the skills workers have and those companies need? The idea there is something structurally wrong with the US workforce is controversial among economists but has a certain resonance with the public. Since the emergence of Japan as a technology and manufacturing powerhouse in the 1970s, Americans have been anxiousthat they were losing their competitive edge to better-educated, harder-working rivals. Economists trying to figure out whether unemployment is cyclical or structural have turned to what they call the Beveridge curve: the relationship between unemployment and the job vacancy rate. Vacancies, the number of unfilled positions, have risen by 35 per cent since their trough in June 2009 – but the unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high. If there are jobs but people are not filling them, it may be because their skills are not up to scratch, say those who fear structural unemployment. But a preponderance of economists argue this is a misreading of the data. A recent San Francisco Fed paper finds that vacancies are high relative to hiring across a broad range of industries, including those such as construction, where recent job cuts mean that there is most unlikely to be a skills shortage. The authors suggest companies may not be trying very hard to fill jobs, while workers in receipt of unemployment insurance may not be trying that hard to find them. Policy moves by the US Federal Reserve reflect a view that most unemployment is not the result of a skills mismatch. But even those who believe that today’s unemployment problem is primarily cyclical say closing the “skills gap” noted by Mr Greenblatt will be essential if Americans are to enjoy stable work and rising wages. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, told an audience in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in August that the US had to “foster the development of a skilled workforce” if it was to enjoy good longer-term prospects. The US education system “despite considerable strengths, poorly serves a substantial portion of our population,” he said. US companies that are growing say an unqualified workforce is already a significant barrier to hiring. In a September poll of owners of fast-growing, privately held US companies undertaken by the non-profit Kauffman Foundation, the inability to find qualified workers was cited as the biggest obstacle to growth. Some 40 per cent of respondents said they were being held back by the skills gap, compared with just 13 per cent by lack of demand. | |
| Posted by: |
| #15 Reminds me of radio add I heard other day. Company looking for Sheet Metal operator or some such thing(don't remember exactly) was looking for positions. And offering to pay for the classes to learn it while giving you the job at the same time. America's decline isn't because we aren't willing, it's because we've been taught that those essential jobs are "demeaning" and "low-class". We're taught "You could become a lawyer, or doctor, or Astronaut". They teach us to accept nothing BUT the top. It's like musical chairs, except everyone wants the nice one and there's 2dozen perfectly good ones with some scratches on it they refuse to use. |
| Posted by: Charles 2011-12-14 21:58 |
| #14 Keep raising the offer along with moving expenses until they flock in. It's called a "market". Or maybe no one likes to work for the guy? If all you pay is peanuts, all you'll get are monkeys. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-12-14 21:16 |
| #13 Our companies have simply loved to eliminate everyone in order to keep bonuses flowing to management. It's been great fun for them and very profitable. Now they expect to get someone similar without having developed them. I have a cousin who was trained by Boeing to be a skilled machinist. They let him go in costcutting and he became a truck driver. And now businesses complain because they can't find qualified help. I have watched this repeated over and over and over again in my lifetime. Get Wall Street out of American business. Employees are not disposable pieces of trash. |
| Posted by: Glath Schwarzeneggar2126 2011-12-14 21:09 |
| #12 Agree with Military Training. Many of our company's best workers and managers have come out of the military and/or from farming families. Both environments foster 'can-do' attitudes and the will to succeed as an individual plus working together as a group to achieve a tangible and valuable goal, something our public educational systems generally don't teach. Our company pays our skilled trades persons between $60K and $95K (plus excellent benefits, pension plans and profit sharing) depending on achievement. Money's better than most college graduates make in their chosen field (plus you don't have all those student loans for your Art and 'Wine Tasting' classes to pay back). Parents and School Guidance Counselors might want to listen when we attempt to explain the benefits of a technical career (which we do often at school and other public/private functions), but they usually don't. As for technical educational classes in high school, unfortunately few of our children are directed there by either parents or school professionals (unless the child is deemed 'unfit for college'). Plus funding and facilities for these programs is usually woeful (unless you're in a rural area). Not saying there aren't some excellent and well-attended technical course curriculums in many of our high schools, just that the really good ones are the exception rather than the norm. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2011-12-14 21:04 |
| #11 80K with OT, health, and benefits. So what's the base rate, 50K? And he's missing out on 5M$ revenue? Dope. Keep raising the offer along with moving expenses until they flock in. It's called a "market". Or maybe no one likes to work for the guy? |
| Posted by: KBK 2011-12-14 19:53 |
| #10 Mike "Dirty Jobs" Rowe has been pushing the truth that, contrary to current 'self esteem building' trends, not everyone is suited for college. Vocational schools and shop classes in high school provide career training and real skills at building and maintaining things we need as a society. Those skills are underavailable in the employment market and are paying pretty damn well, which, if you've had an electrician or plumber out, you well know |
| Posted by: Frank G 2011-12-14 18:23 |
| #9 MR, they need to look at our Military's training methods. They can train a good high school grad (even some college grads) to operate and maintain some of the most sophisticated equipment in the world. Too many high school students are pushed into academics and college where they are not suited. It's time to recognize that not all want or are suited to white collar work (via college). Doesn't mean they aren't from the "right half" of the bell curve, just that they aren't interested in a desk job. |
| Posted by: tipover 2011-12-14 18:19 |
| #8 It's hard to break the mindset that you'll always find someone who knows the trade. Life is hard, and it's harder when you're dumb. That applies to managers & owners of businesses as well. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-12-14 18:19 |
| #7 Big ongoing problem with training in a lot of our domestic 'heavy' industries (especially with machinists, welders and so on). Seems the 'conventional wisdom' over the last two decades has been to 'rob' your competitor's skilled workers so you wouldn't have to spend the time, $$ and effort to train new hires. We heard this reasoning a lot on apprenticeship standards committees when we queried a particular company as to why they hadn't trained any apprentices for years. When times were good (and these workers still fairly young), this method worked for many companies. Unfortunately, these workers aged and are now retiring in droves. It's hard to break the mindset that you'll always find someone who knows the trade. It's harder still to start a training regimen when you only have a dim memory of how that works. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2011-12-14 15:11 |
| #6 Greenblatt's in Baltimore. Lots of steel/iron workers used to be available in their city. But the quality of the workforce in Baltimore ain't what it used to be. |
| Posted by: lotp 2011-12-14 14:40 |
| #5 He expects to find an experienced sheet metal worker out of the blue? Dumbass. Plenty of good people are looking, find a couple of them, hire them and develop your own. Don't you need somebody experienced to train people? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-12-14 14:15 |
| #4 He expects to find an experienced sheet metal worker out of the blue? Dumbass. Plenty of good people are looking, find a couple of them, hire them and develop your own. I totally agree. Since WHEN has it been the job of the government to provide basic training of the kind needed for potential workers referred to in the article? |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-12-14 14:03 |
| #3 Drew Grennblatt is a moron. Find a quality guy willing to learn "with the dive and ability", and teach him at an apprentice wage with promises of higher wages once his skillset improves. He expects to find an experienced sheet metal worker out of the blue? Dumbass. Plenty of good people are looking, find a couple of them, hire them and develop your own. Don't get stuck on age - if there is a 35 or 40 year old guy wanting to change careers, give him a hard look and a tryout. Had he done that 3 years ago, he would not be waiting now. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2011-12-14 13:57 |
| #2 How much of the mismatch is due to people with skills unable to move because they can't sell homes with underwater mortgages? I have the impression that historically American workers have been more willing to move for jobs than, eg. Europeans... |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-12-14 13:57 |
| #1 all that funding and advanced educational skills by the National Teachers Association and the Department of Education, especially the doubling in real inflation adjusted dollars, of education funding since the advent of the Great Society. Net effect, we need to import engineers and chemists because hard science, actual education not social studies, has been abandoned as too hard for some students so we undereducate all. |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2011-12-14 13:41 |