But does he understand how this came about? I believe it is because our public schools are very down on subjects where males do better than females.
Interesting article. I think “skilled blue collar” is still alive and well for those who wish to go that route.
I just wish they weren’t so union-dominated.
They still have many trade classes at my small town High School. There is a waiting list to get in. Also night classes for adults.
If you want to learn a trade, you still can. You just have to want it.
It is due to HS guidance counselors is pushing more people into these worthless degrees and attempting to dissuade students from attending the “Evil” “For-Profit” schools that actually have a higher graduation and hiring rate.
A recruiter for Union Pacific Corp, Ferrie Bailey’s comments are blocked by the paywall for the WSJ. Can someone tell me what skills she is looking for? Welding? Machining? If so I have a suggestion, pay more for those skills and more qualified applicants will show up.
I find a lot of these employer complaints are from companies wanting something for nothing above their idea of market value.
A lot of those cannot be shipped overseas to India as a bonus !
bfl
“Nobody is going to be able to log in to “the cloud” from Brazil and dig a new foundation for your home, wire it up, install the plumbing or put on a new roof. Those jobs will remain here at home.”
Someone still needs to have the money to pay them to do the job.
A big problem, is that employers want someone that knows exactly what to do, so they will just blend in and be productive. Unfortunately, a lot of times, they are the only ones that have experienced people with those specific requirements. Employers want some that can work on rev x, while there may be a number of people that know rev y or rev w, the employers don’t want to spend any overhead on training or OJT.
13-20 million unemployed and nobody is trainable ?
you’ll have a hell of an employee if you do train ‘em and pay ‘em half way decent.
Skilled blue collar with about a year of business school is a good way to go.
What, exactly?
Unread post A lesson in Obama Socialism
“SOME IDEAS ARE SO STUPID ONLY INTELLECTUALS BELIEVE THEM.”
George Orwell
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked (same as our PM taxing everything and giving it to the “disadvantaged”) and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
I posted this on some other threads but it also applies to our unemployment situation, with no rewards come no incentives. If they truly need more skilled workers then offer some incentives. And get rid of the slackers and driftwood.
I just brought on an entry-level person. On the whole, the hiring experience was much better than that of 3-5 years ago. All of the people that we brought in showed up on time, wore appropriate attire, and (most important) didn't curse at me (really, that has been a problem in the past). Additionally, we only needed to talk to 3-4 people - all of whom were qualified - to find the candidate. I'll be honest, it was nice to have a choice, rather than "I hope he'll do".
IMHO, having employment tighten up has improved the people that we've gotten, and (conversely) my company has been more willing to hire as a result.
I can buy the fact that it's hard to find good people, though, having fought that battle in the past.
>>I would once again suggest taking a look at Matthew B. Crawford’s wonderful book, Shop Class as Soulcraft. In it, he examines what he describes as “the value of work.”
I’ve read this book twice and frankly, it is so thick with arcane philosophical references, I don’t see what value it brings to most people. His shorter MY Times article describes the most important points without the twisted Ivory Tower discussions.
There's not a job shortage, there's a work ethic shortage.
Since the article doesn’t specify how much these “high wages” actually are, I’m guessing they’re probably offering about $9 an hour. If the wages were truly “high,” the article would say how much they were.
Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) has addressed this with his Project Mike Rowe Works
http://www.mikeroweworks.com/2011/11/repairing-americas-infrastructure-roads-and-bridges/
Highly recommended
TT
More from the article - apparently “good pay” is $48K for physically demanding work that takes one away from home half the time. And note that the “desperate” UP won’t even pop for the $25 aptitude test.
‘When the railroad had openings for diesel electricians earlier this year, it took [Ferrie] Bailey 10 hiring sessions to fill 24 jobs [...] Known as “installation technicians,” the workers are responsible for putting in and maintaining a sprawling network of cable, microwave relays and related equipment that enables the railroad to monitor 850 trains running daily along its 32,000 miles of track.
‘This doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree but demands technical skills gained either through an associates’ degree or four years of experience in electronics. And it is grueling work. Technicians have to climb 50-foot communications towers, clamber up utility poles and work outdoors through Wyoming winters and Kansas summers. They put in 10-hour days, in clusters of eight or ten days, and are routinely away from home more than half of each month.
‘[...] Standing at the front of the room, Ms. Bailey described the deal. As installation technicians, they would earn $21.64 an hour, or close to $48,000 a year for the railroad’s regular work schedule.
‘[...] After a website job posting, Ms. Bailey initially drew 58 applicants. Of them, she deemed about two dozen sufficiently qualified so that she invited them to take a $25 aptitude test, at their own expense.’
That was well said. Some thirty years ago, a lot of people looked down their noses at me because I chose military and trade school over a 4-year college that many of my high school classmates went on to (usually to major in some vague area of study such as "liberal arts" or "communications").
Instead of college, I went straight to the U.S. Marine Corps after high school and got four years of electronics training and experience. I then went to a 10-month trade school for electronics and computer repair (this was back in the mid 1980s) and before I even finished that school, I was recruited for a full-time job and had to finish my trade school at night.
So I never got the sheepskin to hang on my wall, nor do I have fond memories of college keg parties and Saturday football. However, I can say that I have no idea what it is like to be unemployed. I've never been fired or laid off and if I wanted a better job than the one I had, I had no problem finding one (while I was still employed at my old job). Haven't made less than six figures in over 15 years. Zero school loans and Zero credit card debt. Just took a two-week trip to Hawaii and Las Vegas that I paid cash for. No I'm not rich but I'm in better shape then most of those college graduates who think they are too good to work blue collar jobs. The sad reality is however, that most of those college grads are not qualified to do skilled work (i.e. electrician, plumber, carpenter) and now that they've moved most pencil pushing and computer jobs overseas, they don't know what to do with themselves.