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Why Employers Are to Blame for the ‘Skills Gap’
Fiscal Times ^ | 08/19/2014 | BY ROB GARVER

Posted on 08/19/2014 2:12:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Complaints about a “skills gap” that make it difficult for employers to fill open positions have become commonplace in discussions about the economy and unemployment levels. Workers, the story goes, simply don’t have the educational background or professional training for the kinds of jobs that exist in today’s knowledge economy.

The argument certainly feels like it makes sense – things have changed an awful lot in the past decade, and it could be that older workers simply don’t have the necessary skills for employment today.

The trouble is that economists have become increasingly skeptical about the skills gap narrative, not least of all because of the absence of real wage inflation. After all, if skilled workers were in high demand but short supply, the laws of economics suggest they would be able to demand, and get, higher wages.

A new paper by Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School’s Center for Human Resources, should help solve the puzzle of the skills gap. In a comprehensive survey of the literature on the subject, Cappelli reports little hard evidence to support the theory. He notes that when it comes to workers’ skills, the most pervasive problem in the U.S. right now is that many individuals are working jobs for which they are overqualified.

He suggests that what is really driving the discussion about worker skills is a combination of employers seeking to hold down payroll costs by keeping wages as low as possible – and a longer-term effort to transfer responsibility for training workers from employers themselves to the taxpayer.

“The evidence driving the complaints about skills does not necessarily appear where labor market experts might expect to see it, such as in rising wages,” Cappelli writes.

(Excerpt) Read more at thefiscaltimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: employers; jobs; skillsgap; workforce

1 posted on 08/19/2014 2:12:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I can tell you that in the Silicon Valley, the “skills gap” is nonexistent.

People take classes all the time at the local UC-Santa Cruz Extension campus in Santa Clara - a VERY expensive proposition - for “skills” that employers are telling them are keeping them from getting positions...

...only to STILL not get the jobs, and to STILL see H1B-visa holders flood the valley. The next excuse is “you don’t have ENOUGH experience at that skill!”

What is happening in this country is vile.


2 posted on 08/19/2014 2:15:10 PM PDT by Yossarian
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To: SeekAndFind

“longer-term effort to transfer responsibility for training workers from employers themselves to the taxpayer”

Key phrase. Even though, for most jobs, people can often be productive right from the start, even if they aren’t optimally so and even if the employees themselves are willing, and most are, willing to do their own training on their own time, employers are not willing to spend even a modicum amount to train them.


3 posted on 08/19/2014 2:17:15 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Yossarian

The companies that hold their H1B visas are willing to write fake resumes telling the employer anything he wants to hear.


4 posted on 08/19/2014 2:28:13 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: SeekAndFind

The press has given such complaints legs, because as with the discussion of ‘structural changes’ in the economy, it helps to provide cover for the dismal Obama economic policies and economy.


5 posted on 08/19/2014 2:31:44 PM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: SeekAndFind

There just HAS to be a skills gap, or you don’t get to bring in the H1Bs who will work for less.


6 posted on 08/19/2014 2:44:25 PM PDT by Wolfie
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To: Yossarian
It's crony capitalism from top to bottom- they expect the state to subsidize their low wage employees (EITC), pay for education and worker training, and then if wages still aren't low enough, be free to break the law using H1B visa scams or just hire illegals.

This is why crony capitalists love socialism: socialize costs, privatize profits.

This won't stop until a large amount of the scum floating to the top of the system are removed, violently if necessary.

7 posted on 08/19/2014 2:47:16 PM PDT by pierrem15 (Claudius: "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.")
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To: Yossarian

Public school and some college institutions aren’t teaching kids what they will need to know to work. Now with common core it’s going to be worse.


8 posted on 08/19/2014 2:49:02 PM PDT by Rusty0604
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To: Yossarian

but they - as Obama’s techie friends - will get all the HIBs they want from an illegal Obama exec order


9 posted on 08/19/2014 2:56:01 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: pierrem15
"This won't stop until a large amount of the scum floating to the top of the system are removed, violently if necessary."

Ironic that even a few short weeks ago that profit at any cost was a conservative ideal required to be on Free Republic. Now the anti crony capitalists seem to be emerging on the forum. Am I missing something? Or are we finally being forced to weigh the choice between fascism and communism?

10 posted on 08/19/2014 4:03:51 PM PDT by buckalfa (Long time caller --- first time listener.)
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To: Jonty30
...employers are not willing to spend even a modicum amount to train them.

I see ads where companies are looking for manufacturing people with experience operating specific machinery. How likely is it that someone is going to be experience on the particular equipment your company uses?

Since this ad has been up for years I suspect they are just fishing for a "dream candidate" for the job.

11 posted on 08/19/2014 5:36:02 PM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
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To: SeekAndFind

i have noticed some employers ask for a ton of experience on a whole slew of products. they pad it so someone who has all this, wouldn’t work for their salary, or they don’t really need everything they’ve listed but will reduce the offer if you have less.


12 posted on 08/19/2014 6:01:03 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Yossarian

exactly.


13 posted on 08/19/2014 6:04:28 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: buckalfa

There are factions on FR just as there are on any large forum or blog. The ones who infuriate me are the expats mocking people who remain in the country and claiming that we’re overpaid whiners, while depending upon this market to sell their crap.


14 posted on 08/19/2014 6:11:37 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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