America's Skills Gap

[Jermyn Davidson]

Pritzker says the problem is not lack of jobs. “Since 2009, we’ve created 877,000 manufacturing jobs in this country. And these are not the manufacturing jobs of 25 years ago. These are technical jobs; they often require some kind of computer programming, computer literacy. And these are jobs that have great longevity and are very much associated with innovation of what’s going on in our economy.” Apprenticeships have declined by 40 percent in the last 10 years, and the Obama administration is encouraging companies to do more in this area. “CVS, for example, has just agreed to double the number of apprenticeships in their pharmacy and their medical units — from, I think, 1,500 to 3,000. Campbell’s Soup is doing an apprenticeship program for their production technicians,” says Pritzker. “They know it creates a loyal employee; they know it creates a successful employee.”

http://news.yahoo.com/u-s-secretary-...184604831.html

[shazeep]

well, for whatever reason i am minded of all the wasted money dumped into (cronies' pockets) Iraq, funding infrastructure that no one is qualified to use; and i will posit no one over there with any sense much wants. Who needs more human, chemical medicine? Pharmacists are, or at least may be perceived as witch doctors, no offense meant. Campbell's soup i don't know about; but at the very least they feed humans Monsanto, so...

[shazeep]

ooh, and since the engineered crash, they've "created" a whole 877k "jobs" here? What are the benefits like? What are the working conditions? I've worked several of those jobs, and let me tell you, "job" is being extremely generous. And I'm the type who enjoys work, usually just for its own sake; but i would cheerfully give the temp agencies who charged me 3 hours of pay for any of those "jobs" blankets infested with smallpox if i thought they would be effective; or the zombie companies who "employed" me, and regularly shorted me 2-3 hours a week on my check, plus doing their best to "forget" to call scheduled breaks. We have more than 875k entering the workforce every year, lol. We have like 100 million people out of work right now. This article is an insult.

[Jermyn Davidson]

The article should not be insulting to you. 877k manufacturing jobs added-- that's nearly a million jobs in one sector alone.

The point of the article is that there are plenty of jobs unfilled in America at this very moment because the people lack the skills needed.

How is that insulting? It's simply a fact of life. People need to get skilled and educated for a 21st century work environment.

[shazeep]

Jermyn, if you lose ten million (real) jobs, and gain 877k (fake) jobs, how many jobs have you "gained?" The choices you make in your info also reveal the true nature of your character, imo. The reality is reflected in the fakey unemployment #s this article cites, and by the many other things it does not say. It is strictly propaganda, sorry.

i won't even bother getting into the reams of unemployed college grads that could be easily cross-trained for these so-called "skilled manufacturing" jobs, if they existed. Wth is a "skilled manufacturing" job, anyway? You can train someone to run a CNC machine in about a month; a cert for it might take 3 months. How much more complicated does it get? None of it is rocket science. This article uses polit-speak and lots of other code to lie to you.

[shazeep]

"these are jobs that have great longevity and are very much associated with innovation of what’s going on in our economy."

McDonalds and Health "care" industries, iow. Neat.