Retraining Laid-Off Workers, but for What?

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/business/yourmoney/26lou.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

Layoffs have disrupted the lives of millions of Americans over the last 25 years. The cure that these displaced workers are offered — retraining and more education — is heralded as a sure path to new and better-paying careers. But often that policy prescription does not work, as this book excerpt explains. It is adapted from "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences" by Louis Uchitelle, an economics writer for The New York Times. Knopf will publish the book on Tuesday.

<snip>

Saying that the country should solve the skills shortage through education and training became part of nearly every politician's stump speech, an innocuous way to address the politics of unemployment without strengthening either the bargaining leverage of workers or the federal government's role in bolstering labor markets.

But training for what? The reality, as the aircraft mechanics discovered, is painfully different from the reigning wisdom. Rather than having a shortage of skills, millions of American workers have more skills than their jobs require. That is particularly true of college-educated people, who make up 30 percent of the population today, up from 10 percent in the 1960's. They often find themselves working in sales or as office administrators, or taking jobs in hotels and restaurants, or becoming carpenters, flight attendants and word processors.

<snip>


The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics offers a rough estimate of the imbalance in the demand for jobs as opposed to the supply. Each month since December 2000, it has surveyed the number of job vacancies across the country and compared it with the number of unemployed job seekers. On average, there were 2.6 job seekers for every job opening over the first 41 months of the survey. That ratio would have been even higher, according to the bureau, if the calculation had included the millions of people who stopped looking for work because they did not believe that they could get decent jobs.

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[WildClarySage]

1. Wal-Mart greeters.

[benny05]

2. Good Article

But I am surprised that no one was retrained to be an auto-repair body person, welder, etc.

[pokercat999]

6. Exactly, I have three job openings for auto techs.

We are offering $18.00 hour plus benefits and I can't find QUALIFIED techs. I recently started one tech at $18.00 and hour. He showed up on Monday with his tools worked all day and was a no show no call all week. He doesn't respond to repeated phone messages and I can't locate him. Really strange, and very troublesome because we are adding a night shift fleet service and will need to find another 3 to 6 techs in the coming couple of months. I can find well qualified managers and sales persons galore.

[benny05]

8. You are a good example for many of us

How can we find ways to get more workers retrained for jobs such as yours? Also, we need more handy men around.

[lindisfarne]

3. To work at sweatshops, locked in, to die in fires (several recently in

Bangladesh killed dozens).

[fasttense]

4. Wow, if there is one job for every 2.6 workers,

Not including discouraged workers, that comes out to 61.5% unemployment. Only one person can get that job, that leaves 1.6 people without jobs, which gets you 61.5%. But of that 61% some get lower paying, unskilled jobs.

"So the demand for jobs is considerably greater than the supply, and the supply is not what the reigning theory says it is. Most of the unfilled jobs pay low wages and require relatively little skill, often less than the jobholder has. From the spring of 2003 to the spring of 2004, for example, more than 55 percent of the hiring was at wages of $13.25 an hour or less: hotel and restaurant workers, health care employees, temporary replacements and the like.

That trend is likely to continue. Seven of the 10 occupations expected to grow the fastest from 2002 through 2012, according to the Labor Department, pay less than $13.25 an hour, on average: retail salesclerks, customer service representatives, food service workers, cashiers, janitors, nurse's aides and hospital orderlies."

The only way this trend will change is if the United States is no longer a market for cheap goods and products. When we get down to a standard of living equal to what India and China have right now, then we will get our jobs back but at about $250 a month. Oh happy days.

[Lindsay]

5. It's good to see in print from someone with expertise in the field

what a lot of us have believed all along.

Thanks for posting the article.

[APPLE314]

7. AS VOTING MACHINE MECHANICS

Dollar for Dollar you get the most value out of training someone to manipulate electronic equipment. This is cheaper than buying votes, and immensely more intellectually rewarding.

[Trillo]

9. It seems that in the ultra-specialization game,

retrainers should do well, at least as well as the casinos.