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