Pease read Paul Krugman on the Fake Skills Shortage.
Every time you hear Arne Duncan or someone from the US Chamber of Commerce or the Business Roundtable complain that they can’t find skilled workers, think of this article and remember. The big corporations outsource jobs to where the wages are lowest. They send the jobs to countries where workers get half or less than American workers. They don’t send them to other countries because skills elsewhere are higher and more plentiful, but because wages are less. It’s all about cost-cutting and profit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They not only outsource their jobs, they outsource training. My father spent over 30 years working for a large multi-national chemical company in the 50s through the 80s… during seven of those years he worked in their management and sales training division… As he was leaving the company, they eliminated that division and outsourced their sales and management training— which worked for him because he was able to consult with them, but eroded an opportunity for a younger employee to work in that arena… Now corporations want to outsource ALL of their training to community colleges and universities— or— worse yet— to the web…. American corporations have no loyalty to their employees, only to their shareholders…
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I agree. The article that Krugman’s article referred to didn’t touch much on the training aspect. Many companies used to do training of new employees. You didn’t have to know how to do the specific work that the company hired you for, since the company would spend time educating you on the specifics of your new job.
This is not being done anymore. Companies expect all new hires to know how to do the job from day one (“we need skilled workers”). Yes, companies are much more computerized now, so you have to know how to use and/or program their computers. But programming PLCs (programmable logic controllers) and other manufacturing-specific computers isn’t taught in high schools, nor should it be in my opinion.
So what happens? Companies complain that there’s a STEM shortage. That high schools just aren’t preparing kids for these types of manufacturing jobs. Nice to point the blame at someone else, but it’s not the high schools that are failing to prepare the students. They’re doing just fine. (I read something today that the average high school student has more scientific knowledge than Sir Isaac Newton had.)
If the companies need skilled workers to do their specific type of work, then those companies need to educate their new workers on how to do those jobs, and pay them fairly.
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This argument is so stupid. It is not the skills. It is the bottom line cost for employee’s.
We hire college graduates in Ecuador from “American” Universities. They are extremely bright with high intelligence. We can train them for sales, customer service, marketing (not basic but higher priced US jobs) or finance. We pay them plus give them the amount of the premium for national insurance. It is much less than US employees.
Now we turn to the Philippines for further growth. We are beginning to steal them from the big call center companies that handle US travel firms such as Expedia. They are now working in the call center environment with very strict rules and rigid quality reviews and can easily be dismissed. We offer them the equivalent of working for $3 an hour working from the home and I am much nicer than the call center manager. Now that I have hired my second one, others are starting to send resumes.
How can I find US workers so we can compete with the large firms who have already outsourced to other countries. The Republicans would say these are not quality jobs as they are call center jobs. Still the jobs were traditional American jobs. However, the people doing marketing, finance and sales would make anywhere from $30K to $75 in the United States plus all the benefits.
How do we prepare the masses in school for “skilled” positions when the jobs are leaving our country?
Walter “Sandy” Silvers
________________________________
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To answer your question. We can’t “prepare the masses in school for ‘skilled positions’. ” That is not our charge for the public schools. Here is my response to something Diane wrote about the purpose of public education:
“What is the primary goal of education? To assure that the younger generation is prepared in mind, character and body to assume the responsibilities of citizenship in our society.” Not quite. There are thousands of missions statements out there, probably at least one for every district and school and more likely than not those are “secondary” statements. What is the primary goal of public education? And where can it be found?
To answer the second question first, in each state’s constitution in the article that authorizes public education. So in essence there are 50 different goals/purposes although I suspect that they are similar in nature to what Missouri’s constitution has to say: Article IX, subsection 1a: “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law.”
I’ll let you decide what “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people. . .” means. But I do not see anything about “preparing students to assume the responsibilities of citizenship”-whatever those “responsibilities” may be. We have assumed a purpose that may or may not be in concert with what the constitution says so I have concerns with these mission statements that go beyond the basic purpose as delineated in the constitution.
Yep by what you have written you are part of the problem with the “Race to the Bottom” of the economic ladder. You’re attempting to get your little bit of the action and that’s fine. Just realize that what may be good for you is not necessarily good for society, contrary to Randism.
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Krugman is referencing another writer for the Times: “Kudos to Adam Davidson for some much-needed mythbusting about the supposed skills shortage holding the US economy back.” (I wonder if that is now becoming standard practice for online journalists to increase the number of site visits to increase ad revenue).
Headline should read “Please read Adam Davidson for some mythbusting about the skills shortage.
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See for the Davidson story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/magazine/skills-dont-pay-the-bills.html?hp&_r=0
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I did read Davidson’s article and tended to agree with what he wrote until the very end. His article ends with the following: “As we talked, it became clear that Isbister’s problem is part of a larger one. Isbister told me that he’s ready to offer training to high-school graduates, some of whom, he says, will eventually make good money. The problem, he finds, is that far too few graduate high school with the basic math and science skills that his company needs to compete. As he spoke, I realized that this isn’t a narrow problem facing the manufacturing industry. The so-called skills gap is really a gap in education, and that affects all of us.” So it’s back to blaming teachers and public education in the end.
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No, it’s not a “failure” of public education. It’s a failure of businessmen like Isbister who insist on paying slave labor, oh maybe max $15/hr = $31,200/yr-max. It’s a wage gap in that the “owners” want to take the max out of the business while paying the minimum barely minimum wages. What does Isbister take home a year? As stated in the article, if there is a shortage then the salaries of those positions should be rising but they’re not. No, there are far too many highly skilled people with too few position available and the capitalists insist on keeping wages down.
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While I agree with you Duane, Davidson ends his article in agreement with Isbister that students are exiting high school without necessary math and science skills. Davidson spend nearly all of the article criticizing manufacturing companies, specifically GenMet, for low wages and outsourcing jobs, but in the end Davidson reverts back to the same old game of blaming public education and teachers.
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It is sickening to hear the same lies and excuses from the Big $$$ folks to support their misguided practices. Public education, teachers and kids are paying too high a price. Spouting job preparation for jobs that are in other parts of the world, called job exploitation! Only created for Big $$$! Everything is so transparent! Big $$$ could care less about kids, teachers and public education…it’s all about Big $$$! Stop the testing insanity! RT3 needs to stop…not about educating kids! About Big $$$ in testing. We are losing countless hours of instructional time for Big $$$ testing. Will lose outstanding teachers. Import TFA until their student loans are paid off. Stop!!
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This reminds me also of the so-called STEM crisis in this country and how politicians like to say schools aren’t producing enough strong math and science candidates (a favorite talking point of Obama’s). The reality seems to be completely different, that there are few well-paid jobs for our science PhDs, and many Americans are not willing to work in the low-paid options. (See: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2010/12/no_shortage_of_math_and_science_graduates.html or http://www.psmag.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/ ) ““There is no scientist shortage,” declares Harvard economics professor Richard Freeman, a pre-eminent authority on the scientific work force. Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a leading demographer who is also a national authority on science training, cites the “profound irony” of crying shortage — as have many business leaders, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates — while scores of thousands of young Ph.D.s labor in the nation’s university labs as low-paid, temporary workers, ostensibly training for permanent faculty positions that will never exist.”
For anyone who remembers the movie ‘Margin Call’-a story about the beginning of the economic meltdown- and the promising young and brilliant trader who discovers the flaw that will lead to the crisis. Later he admits that he is a trained MIT rocket scientist, but found a job on Wall St because “the money was better”. Want to find America’s “brilliant” math and science people, follow the money all the way to Wall St…
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Education deformers getting on the “There aren’t enough enough skilled workers” (while rarely mentioning employer demands that these skilled employees work for $12-14 dollars an hour) bandwagon also ignore the fact that two thirds of all jobs being created require little or no education or training, and pay actual poverty wages.
Then again, education reform is much about “compliance,” and never more so than when it insists on worker “compliance” with a labor market dominated solely by the interests of employers.
That’s what The Common Core Standards really mean when they talk about being “career ready.”
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“That’s what The Common Core Standards really mean when they talk about being “career ready.””
Exactly!! What you have written in the post is quite correct.
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As I commented above, the Davidson article referred to by Krugman concludes by blaming teachers again. Davidson makes some great points but ruins it all in the end by writing, “As we talked, it became clear that Isbister’s problem is part of a larger one. Isbister told me that he’s ready to offer training to high-school graduates, some of whom, he says, will eventually make good money. The problem, he finds, is that far too few graduate high school with the basic math and science skills that his company needs to compete. As he spoke, I realized that this isn’t a narrow problem facing the manufacturing industry. The so-called skills gap is really a gap in education, and that affects all of us.”
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This reminds me of the constant refrain that American schools aren’t producing enough Math/Science majors (A favorite complain of the Obama administration.) This is a myth. ( http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2010/12/no_shortage_of_math_and_science_graduates.html ) In reality, there are few tenure-track jobs at universities or high-paying jobs at companies for our homegrown STEM graduates. This author writes, ““There is no scientist shortage,” declares Harvard economics professor Richard Freeman, a pre-eminent authority on the scientific work force. Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a leading demographer who is also a national authority on science training, cites the “profound irony” of crying shortage — as have many business leaders, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates — while scores of thousands of young Ph.D.s labor in the nation’s university labs as low-paid, temporary workers, ostensibly training for permanent faculty positions that will never exist.” ( http://www.psmag.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/ )
I am also reminded of the movie ‘Margin Call’, a film about the hours leading up to the financial meltdown. In the movie, it is a brilliant, young trader who discovers the flaw which leads to the beginning of the massive economic crisis. Later in the film, it is revealed that this young man was a rocket scientist out of MIT who came to Wall St because of the money. If we want to find all of our highly-trained, STEM people, just follow the money. All the way to Wall St….
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We are not the training division of business X. They will have to “invest” in that themselves. Maybe they could pay some taxes to augment the public schools? Maybe they could hire their own training departments again? Nah, just blame schools and teachers. It is easier to control drones that can’t find a better job because all jobs pay about the same dreary wage.
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60 minutes had an excellent piece on this very issue. It profiled a “CEO” who kept complaining about the lack of qualified workers. He claimed that even college grads were coming in with poor work skills-like not showing up on time. He claimed he couldn’t train the people for the jobs and would have to take his toys and jobs overseas to find skilled workers. (Wouldn’t he have to train them there too?) At the end, two adult men had completed the training provided(and paid for) by the state and they began working for the “CEO”. Guess what their starting pay was? $12 an hour!! Two grown men working for $12 an hour. With the attitude you would think this CEO was hiring $40 an hr! Yes. That is why you can’t find skilled labor. No one wants to work for peanuts!!! There seems to be no shame in this country by business owners and unbridled greed. No shame in underpaying and mistreating workers. Who could support a family on $12 an hr????
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This is just a pathetic way for polititcians to blame the unemployed rather than themselves
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And not just politicians, Dee Dee. Selfish, greedy people, like the management that drove Hostess into the ground, yet upped their salaries tremendously, then blamed the “union demands” for the collapse of the company.
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It always amazes me when people talk about a job that pays 30K a year. There is no discussion about the taxes that you pay before you get a paycheck – which immediately reduces that job to 21K a year. That is 1750 a month net. Average daycare costs are $600 a month in the PNW – so let’s reduce that to $1150. Rent? on a one bedroom apt. in a city? minimum of $800 a month. So that leaves $350 a month for utilities, food, car payment, and insurance. Seriously people? And we wonder why so many children live in poverty in this country? We wonder why so few people have insurance? We wonder why there is so much debt? Seriously? I don’t know how people survive. I don’t understand why more people are not offended by the completely OBSCENE income disparity in this country. There is no reason for people like the Waltons to not pay their employees a living wage and benefits. How much money can one family spend in their lifetimes? It makes me ill.
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My students in 13th grade do not have basic math skills, so I can not dispute the Davidson’s conclusions. Most of my students can not solve a system of two linear equations for with two unknowns, many have problems solving a single equation for one unknown, some can not add or simplify fractions.
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One of the major reasons for this is NCLB. Teachers are forced into sticking to a timeline that does not allow for as much review and/or slowing down as many students need. By the third grade, students must be introduced to all of the material on the standardized test, even if they are not ready for it. In addition, whether the student passes or fails the tests or the subjects, as long as they are still breathing they are moved up to the next grade level annually.
The pace is much to fast for many students and leaves teachers in the situation of bucking the system by slowing down and reviewing regularly or keeping up with the mandated pace. Either way, many of the students are going to fail the tests and it will be the teacher, administrator, and school community that will be punished for not meeting AYP.
It is not until high school that students are no longer socially promoted. However, after 9 years of having the only criteria for moving from grade level to grade level be simply having a pulse, in 9th grade we have far too many students who are way below grade level and have no motivation. They’ve been beaten down by the system that forces them to sit through lesson on topics too advanced for them and they’ve learned that whether they succeed in learning the material or not, they’ll go on to the next grade.
Every year I spend weeks teaching multiplication tables to high school students (and I’m an English teacher) because they haven’t learned them yet and their math teachers are required to keep pace with the lowest course we teach – algebra. How are these issues the fault of the teachers? How does this suggest that teachers are not doing their jobs?
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I am no fan of mechanically moving students along a curriculum at a standardized pace independent of the student’s level of understanding, but that is the traditional approach.
I wish the blog had more suggestions about what should be done in education instead of focusing on what should not be done. Perhaps something about more flexibility in coverage between grades or eliminating the grade structure entirly?
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Where di I place any blame on teachers? Where did I say teachers are not doing their job?
I actually blame the students. These are not difficult skills, and there are many ways that they can learn them on their own.
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Your comment stated that you could not dispute Davidson’s conclusions. He wrote that there is a gap in education which usually means the writer is blaming teachers for not educating effectively. If you do not dispute his conclusions, then it would seem you, too, are looking at a failure in education.
I dispute your claim that basic math skills are not difficult to learn, though. My own children need the concepts explained over and over again. I demonstrate with manipulatives, my fingers, visually on my iPad, and in writing. We discuss the concept of addition and how that relates to multiplication. We’ve begun talking about subtraction but until they grasp that concept better, I’ll wait to talk more about division. The students I teach don’t have people at home to guide them through this. Teachers are not allowed to slow down to approach these basic math skills from different angles. The test is given in 3rd grade, so teachers have to keep forging on. Most of my students who still haven’t learned their times tables by 9th grade, still don’t understand the concept of multiplication well. These are easy skills to those who can look back already knowing them, but to kids who didn’t grasp these skills quickly enough in primary grades aren’t going to magically be able to teach themselves when they are teens.
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I took his statement about math to mean that potential workers did not know enough math. I was not aware of any unstated claim about who was at fault. As I said, I think the students, especially high school students, need to actively participate in their own education and work to fill in holes that they have.
There is no doubt that mathamatics is difficult for some, perhaps many, students. It is of such importance, however, that we should keep at it until almost all students do understand a basic minimum.
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Very interesting post and interesting discussion that covers a lot of ground very quickly (much like the math pacing guides we try unsuccessfuly to adhere to). There are two things being said which need to be reconciled. On one hand, it is being asserted that there is no real shortage of skilled labor in U.S. manufacturing. I assume that by “skilled labor” in manufacturing we’re talking about positions that require training in trades such as machining, welding, electrical, etc., i.e., traditional blue-collar positions. It’s already clear that there is no shortage of college grads since so many can’t find work in good paying jobs, a point driven home ad nauseum during the presidential campaign. Many highly skilled positions have been outsourced.
On the other hand it is admitted that our students have very poor math skills. Having taught at both middle and high school levels for 21 years I can attest to the truth of that. I would add that the skills lacking are shocking. The majority of the algebra students I’ve taught don’t know basic measurements like how many ounces in a pound or pints in a gallon. Most don’t even know how to use a standard ruler ( they can understand that something is between the 7 and 8 inch marks but they don’t know how to read that it is, say, 7 5/16 in.). It’s true that some of the education initiatives at national levels haven’t helped. But I saw these same problems 20 years ago.
Anecdotally, I know people who have managed in HR and temp employment firms and according to them there has been a very steady decline in the quality of applicants over the past 40 years in terms of basic skills including functional reading skills.
The point is this. How do we reconcile the fact that many of our non-university bound students (the majority) really are graduating with poor basic skills with the denial that there is a shortage of skilled labor, that is, qualified applicants for manufacturing jobs that require good basic skills?
I’m not sure what the answer is here but there is a disconnect.
Your blog is thought provoking and raises very important issues. I appreciate it.
Warmth and Peace.
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