Posted on 12/09/2011 8:43:24 PM PST by neverdem
This article is just a rehash of many I’ve read over the past few years.
“Industry can’t find enough skilled workers, jobs going unfilled, blah, blah.” What they mean is they can’t find skilled labor at eight to ten dollars an hour.
What a crock of crap.
I know plenty of intelligent people who could be easily trained to do any such job mentioned in the article, The fact is that most of these business owners want highly trained (usually implicitly on the public dime) workers who will work for little more than unskilled illegals. *ANY* company that even slightly tried to have anything resembling ‘on the job training’ that would pay people a low, but livable wage while they learned skills to eventually join the ranks of the highly skilled would be BESIEGED by hundreds, even thousands of intelligent, hard working, God fearing, grateful, English speaking native born Americans. While I don’t like taxes any more than anyone else, the fact is that a really good vocational education program is going to cost money. One cannot gripe about the lack of trained workers and promulgate cutting funding for the high schools and the junior colleges, at least where I live.
We need to model our vocational system after that of Germany. A non college but still rigorous technical training program available to any citizen at a reasonable cost.
“...average annual earnings of $73,000...”
65,000 oil wells in Ohio.
At 40 barrels a day, about the national average, that means Ohio pumps 25% of USA production - wrong!
Besides that, though...
The most important thing about manufacturing jobs is that almost all of them are blue collar.
The air temp is too hot or too cold - you often get dirty - you often sweat - you often stand the whole day - you usually do highly repetitive tasks - you get physically tired - your co-workers tend to have below average verbal skills and below average curiosity - managers treat you with less respect and less tolerance than they treat their white collar peers - and the production quota, there is always, always, always a vigorously enforced quota.
I mean, here's the true test...
How often have you seen your kids and their friends sit around and talk about their “dream” manufacturing job?
Never, that's how often.
“The easiest way to make $75,000 a year as an Ohio resident is to become a public school teacher. I wish I was kidding.”
Here in NJ that was the way, until Governor Christie capped our property taxes. This caused non-tenured teachers (as well as some tenured ones) to lose their jobs as the funds ran out to pay them while still giving the surviving teachers their ridiculous pay/benefits packages, and promised long-term unemployment to recent “education” graduates as those already in those positions dug in to keep them. They know they are an anomaly, and are unemployable outside of the public school classroom.
I agree; if these jobs were out there in any real numbers people would be flocking to them.
Since anyone can see that the employment picture is dismal, I guess the new strategy is to find a small niche where things are better and trumpet it as a success (or blame Americans for being too lazy to get the training/do the work).
My brother works for a company that builds large boats and ships...ferries etc. Recently his company let go of all the unskilled workers (younger ones not learning a craft) and kept all the older workers. What will they do without the older guys? My brother is now 57 years old.
The news gets worse.
Here in Seattle, ONE THIRD of computer programmers are foreign born.
This is absolutely a money issue.
Through so called “temporary” work visas and “internships,” companies like Microsoft have crushed salaries for first year and mid-level USA born programmers.
“Through so called “temporary” work visas and “internships,” companies like Microsoft have crushed salaries for first year and mid-level USA born programmers.”
That, BTW, is a mortal sin.
The situation in US Mfg is becoming very dire relative to an expected bulge of retirements in the next 5 years that will include a lot of the skilled/knowledge employees and managers. Predictions are varied but there will a shortfall of millions of employees of all types needed in manufacturing. I blame the failed ‘everybody must have a college degree’, the pig ignorant state and federal government and US business & business orgs which has been unable to stand up and be heard!
This organization, NTMA, the National Tooling and Machining Association list of small cap precision machining/metalworking companies...http://www.ntma.org/members/directory/.
ping
The new machines for CNC are so sophisticated that Mechanical engineers receive top dollar pay to run them at Honeywell in Kansas. And they are picky about where the engineers come from - local talent is best they have said on more than one occasion. Preferably Kansas and Missouri graduates do best. And they get top dollar. But they (the engineers) aren’t in a design or a career track so there is that tradeoff. But the future is extremely bright for anyone who knows how to run any kind of manufacturing equipment.
Nobody; as it costs too much.
The ONLY way to get the 'jobs' back is to make it cost effective.
Bull!
It COSTS too much!
Does ANYone really think that the worker bees in foreign factorys are more SKILLED than us?
And just WHY are they looking for YOUNG people?
They'll work for LESS than the older ones!
yup!
Yeah...
Sure...
Nope; plain ol' supply and demand: Economics 101
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.