Posted on 10/15/2013 10:17:38 AM PDT by Kaslin
Some bad news for America, not on the political front this time, but on what corporate executives call human resources.
It's from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's report on adult skills, based on 166,000 interviews in 24 economically advanced countries in 2011 and 2012.
The verdict on the United States: "weak in literacy, very poor in numeracy, but only slightly below average in problem-solving in technology-rich environments."
On literacy, just 12 percent of U.S. adults score at the top two levels, significantly lower than the 22 percent in largely monoethnic and culturally cohesive Japan and Finland. American average scores are below those in our Anglosphere cousins Australia, Canada and England and Northern Ireland.
One-sixth of Americans score at the bottom two levels, compared to 5 percent in Japan and Finland.
On numeracy the United States does even worse -- only 8 percent at the top levels and one-third in the lowest.
Americans do better at problem solving in tech-rich environments, which economist Tyler Cowen in his new book "Average Is Over" says will be of great economic value in the future.
One-third of Americans score at the top two levels, while one-third score at the bottom or lack such skills altogether.
That puts us just below the average of the countries tested. Finland, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada are well ahead.
The OECD report finds a wider range of skills in the U.S. than in other countries surveyed. Americans with only high school educations perform worse than their counterparts in all but one other nation.
And the report found that socioeconomic background is more strongly correlated with skills proficiency in this country.
In addition, there is the uncomfortable finding that disproportionate percentages of blacks and Hispanics have low skills.
Fully half of the Americans with the lowest level of literacy are Hispanic (presumably reflecting some immigrants' weak English) and another 20 percent are black.
This is probably true of other groups. In his 2012 book "Coming Apart," Charles Murray showed that the 30 percent of whites with the lowest education and income levels have low rates of family formation, little involvement in voluntary associations and high levels of substance abuse.
Most likely, those of any race or ethnic groups with divorced or single parents, or who are divorced or single parents themselves, tend to lag below national and international averages in literacy and numeracy.
Another disturbing finding of the OECD is that younger age cohorts in the U.S. do not seem to have skills as high as those in the cohort just below age 65.
All of this suggests that America's economic future may not be as bright as its past -- or that the current economic doldrums may turn out to be the new normal.
What to do? The OECD sensibly calls for better education and more adult skills training. In fact, many worthy attempts have been made and are being made to improve education around the country, and some have had positive results.
Even the Obama administration, despite its political debts to teacher unions, has pitched in to some extent.
In the meantime, the United States can do something about improving skill sets by changing its immigration laws to increase high-skill immigration.
Current immigration law has inadvertently resulted in a vast low-skill migration from Latin America and especially from Mexico. Unanticipated large numbers have used the family reunification provisions to come in legally, and large numbers have crossed the border illegally.
Congress can change that by cutting back on extended family reunification, improving border enforcement and requiring use of e-Verify or other status verification technology.
More important, Congress can vastly expand high-skill immigration. The Senate bill passed last spring goes some distance toward this, but not far enough.
The U.S. should take a lesson from its Anglosphere cousins Australia and Canada, which both have higher immigration proportionate to population and which both outscored the U.S. in literacy, numeracy and high-tech problem solving in the OECD survey.
Australia and Canada allocate large shares of their immigration flow by point systems, which give credit for educational achievement and marketable skills. They do not necessarily tie high-skill immigrants to a single petitioning employer, as H-1B visas do in the U.S.
Both countries are attracting high-skill immigrants, especially from China and India, and both have had better performing economies than the U.S. does.
Making a concerted effort to attract high-skill immigrants should be a no-brainer for America.
Democrat Solution:
Drag the numbers down even more by adding another 15 to 30 illegals to the labor pool.
Affirmative Action takes a toll over time. And they’re raised by and as lifelong entertainment addicts too.
They’re skilled and able-bodied enough to cart away the entire inventory of a Walmart in a few hours.
I know one low-skilled worker who became president of the United States.
I have the solution, but they wouldn’t like it because it’s not “nice”.
Pay them what they’re worth (no minimum wage) and they don’t eat if they don’t work.
Two incentives to get “skilled”.
Maybe sell them to China?
And raise the minimum wage so even the least capable "workers" can "earn a living wage". When one tells you that, if you pay them what they're worth, they can't live on that, you should give them a tin cup, 3 broken pencils, and point out the nearest street corner designated for begging...
Yes, but one can excel in all of these areas and still be utterly unemployable if one is over age 40. Employers want smart, cheap, malleable, young people, and that's why they have migrated operations overseas in search of them. They despair that American young people are so stupid...but that isn't quite enough to make them hire from the large pool of older Americans who are not.
The US will soon be full of idiots and they'll need you to feed, house, and clothe them.
And state education camps are de facto moron breeding centers.
What, and have them come back to us in petfood?
‘I know one low-skilled worker who became president of the United States.’
That, sir, is an atrocious attack against the unskilled worker. Unskilled does not me no skills. Obama has no skills.
“The verdict on the United States: ‘weak in literacy, very poor in numeracy, but only slightly below average in problem-solving in technology-rich environments.”’
So, basically - semi-trainable apes? From what I’ve seen as an employer, I’d agree!
And I live in a BASTION of really, really SMART Liberals! So smart, they put me to shame, as I’m a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Conservative, LOL! They would never deign to work for the likes of me, anyways. *SMIRK*
“They’re skilled and able-bodied enough to cart away the entire inventory of a Walmart in a few hours.”
POST OF THE DAY! :)
How about we conscript 'em into a mercenary army we can rent out to Saudi Arabia, Al Queda or the Muslim Brotherhood to further the Grand Caliphate?
It isn't just Canada and Australia. It is every county in the world with a sane immigration system.
Back during the Yugoslavian civil war when the United Nations was assigning every first world country a refugee quota, the United States dutifully complied. Japan told them to pound sand.
We got immigrants like the Boston Marathon bomber and the Trolley Square shooter. Japan accepted a grand total of two-- one who was married to a Japanese national, the other an Orthodox Christian single engineer. They had the sense to say no thanks to Muslims. Why don't we?
What’s the point in going into a huge amount of debt to get high skills when there aren’t enough high skill jobs?
How about sending them all to Congress?
With their skill set, they can hardly do a worse job.
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