“...a surprise: a shortage of certain job skills ...”
With schools guiding students to maintain high GPAs, via basket weaving courses, where’s the basis for “surprise”?
I have shared your concerns about public schools spending to much time putting condoms on cucumbers. Declining technical and craft skills is something I had suspected was part of the problem, but nobody ever talked abut it.
I guess the surprise was that I finally heard someone on TV talk about it.