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When states suffer a widespread loss of jobs, the damage extends to the next generation, where college attendance drops among the poorest students, says new research from Duke University. As a result, states marked by shuttered factories or dormant mines also show a widening gap in college attendance between rich and poor, the authors write.
In states that suffered a 7 percent job loss, college attendance by the poorest youth subsequently dropped by 20 percent, even when financial aid increased. The pattern also persisted across a wide range of states, despite variations in public college tuition rates.
Source: Duke University
Excellent. Maybe now we can get over this idea that our precious little progeny are too good for blue collar work and fill some of the six million jobs that nobody can be found to do.
[Editor's note: On my checking of the '6 million jobs' statement, I came across this article from September last year.]
[J]ob openings at 5.9 million in July set a new all-time record. Yet despite all the anxiety we hear about disappearing factory jobs, the number of unfilled manufacturing jobs in July was at the highest level in recent years. So why are they still open?
Factory work has evolved over the past 15 years or so as companies have invested in advanced machinery requiring new skill sets. Many workers who were laid off in recent decades – as technology, globalization and recession wiped out lower-skilled jobs – don't have the skills to do today's jobs.
[...] Gary Miller [...] started at Ohio-based Kyocera Precision Tools Inc. in 1989, it employed 550 production workers. Since then it has shed half of its workers; yet it now produces twice as much [...] Mr. Miller, who is now the company's director of training, struggles to find technicians with the electrical and mechanical skills needed to operate and maintain the complex machines. One electrical maintenance job went unfilled for over a year as he searched for someone with an associate's or bachelor's diploma in manufacturing engineering.
[...] The study found it takes an average of 94 days to recruit for highly-skilled roles such as scientist or engineer, and 70 days for skilled production workers.
Source: Value Walk
Additionally, there are apparently plenty of jobs in food service. Starting in March of 2010 and continuing through April of 2017, there have been 86 consecutive month of payroll gains for America's waiters and bartenders. Since 2014, 800,000 "food service and drinking places" jobs have been created, over the same period the number of manufacturing jobs created has been just 105,000.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:26PM (25 children)
More to the point, if there's a skills mismatch, why is it that it's always on the worker to make the investment of time and money to get the skills the company needs? Back in the heyday of the US economy, it was not uncommon at all for larger companies in particular to start people off in a completely unskilled position and actively invest some of their time in training for more skilled work, or even have training programs in which people right off the street would focus on learning the skills the company needed.
That's what employers will do if the shortage of particular skills is as real as they're claiming it is. Well, that and give everybody who has those skills generous raises, regularly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:14PM (1 child)
AKA the trade union experience.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:51AM
...or that of the worker-owned cooperative.
FTFS: Kyocera [...] has shed half of its workers; yet it now produces twice as much
With per-worker productivity up 400 percent, a (Socialist) worker-owned co-op might have cut the work week to 10 hours for all of its workers while keeping paychecks the same (adjusted for inflation or whatever).
This would serve to maximize social stability in the community where the plant is located.
What actually happened was that The Ownership Class (which, in the case of Capitalism, isn't the same as The Working Class), wanting to maximize profits for themselves (who likely live in another town), chose to cut jobs and not increase wages dramatically.
The results you get depend on what your goal is.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 17 2017, @04:14PM (22 children)
Because you can't train a dipshit to be a machinist at all. Even intelligent people (who went to college and see blue collar work as beneath them) can't be trained in a fiscal quarter (it takes years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce a competent one from a current employee) and management usually can't see farther than that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @05:37PM (21 children)
Nah, I think you're full of shit. For a while I was applying to any and all jobs available, including the types you're referring to. Machinist? Would have loved to learn they trade, but they always wanted years of experience.
Nope, there is a massive problem where employers are too lucky and unwilling to train. Gotta have peak efficiency at all times, and they never want to provide real training. Also, many of those jobs are located elsewhere and they don't pay well enough to relocate for.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Saturday June 17 2017, @06:25PM (2 children)
You don't walk into an airplane plant and ask for a machinist trainee job.
They hire machinists, not create them.
You go to small manufacturing plants, or auto repair shops and learn your way around tools. Maybe you start out in a complete different field. Maybe you carry rags, sweep shavings, and wipe down machines that these guys use for a year before or two they let you touch a wrench or turn a knob.
But you won't be learning that work near airplanes or any high tech industry.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @06:31PM (1 child)
I see that you've never heard of Navy's A-school.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @02:09AM
Navy's A-school
It's sad that you youngsters never experienced a time when a company -would- bring you along, giving you additional training.
...without requiring you to subscribe to USA's Imperialist Aggression War Machine.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 17 2017, @07:09PM (17 children)
You know, they make schools for this now if you're not of a mind to take a lower paying job that will train you. I know, they're not prestigious. They don't take a hundred grand and four years to complete and they all but guarantee you a good paying job upon completion, but they're not fancy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @11:55PM (16 children)
For a lot of people they need the money to go yo school. Such programs cost a decent chunk of cash and don't always mean you'll find a job after. Free or highly subsidized education really helps here, it allows people to retrain with a lot less risk. More flexible economy is good for everyone!
Invest in our future, support free education and healthcare! A healthier and more skilled population makes for a strong foundation.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:35AM (15 children)
TANSTAAFL
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @02:13AM (12 children)
...especially with Capitalists (who produce nothing) skimming off all the cream before the people who actually perform the work get anything.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:39AM (10 children)
Try creating a significant business only using workers. No management. No owner. See how far you get without ambition and inspiration.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:58AM (9 children)
I didn't say there is no management.
The Workers chose their management democratically: One worker == One vote.
In a worker-owned cooperative, The Workers are the owners.
Even someone stupid should be able to understand that.
Not only are worker-owned cooperatives common throughout the world, they're becoming more common.
I've mentioned (probably over 100 times now) a company that has done this since 1956 (Mondragon).
You stupidly refuse to acknowledge that it exists.
I've also mentioned the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of worker-owned co-ops in northern Italy.
You stupidly refuse to acknowledge that those exist.
Quit being stupid.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 18 2017, @05:03AM (6 children)
Who owns the company is irrelevant. What matters is how it's run and that is never decided democratically in any business that does anything impressive. In the end you either have someone at the top with the ambition and inspiration to create something spectacular or you do not get something spectacular. End of story.
Yeah, you can put together a handful of socialists and they can limp by. Hell, maybe even grow a little. They're never going to excel against a one man with drive, vision, and the ability to create though. When you remove the reward for excellence, you remove excellence.
Maybe that's your goal though. Socialism is top to bottom about envy and nothing irks others more than being simply better than them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @10:13PM (5 children)
maybe even grow a little
Mondragon started in 1956 with 6 worker-owners.
Currently they have over 100,000 worker-owners in 40 countries on 5 continents.
You are a fool.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 18 2017, @10:26PM (4 children)
Sit down and do a wee bit of math if you would. Compare those numbers to how fast successful businesses grow in the US. Feel a bit silly now, don't you?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @11:00PM (3 children)
Some people just can't think outside the Capitalist must-always-maximize-old-memes box.
Mondragon doesn't seek to maximize growth.
...nor does it seek to maximize returns for stockholders (the idle rich); it has no stockholders.
The goal of Mondragon (et al.) is to maximize social stability for the communities of its workers.
It's not simply about predatory extraction of wealth for people on the other side of the city/state/country/planet.
Exploitive slave economies are an anachronism.
Exploitive feudal economies are an anachronism.
The exploitive boom-and-bust Capitalist system has dramatically demonstrated yet again that it is time to replace that with something more stable.
There are thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of examples of Socialist workplaces worldwide.
They work well and they serve The Workers (which is their purpose).
Your malformed brain, however, will never grasp this concept.
Reactionaries (such as you) hold the belief that "There will always be poor people".
Classists (such as you) believe that some people, despite busting their asses all week, don't deserve a paycheck that allows them a comfortable life.
YOU are an anachronism.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 19 2017, @11:35PM (2 children)
Idiot. If it has owners it has people who benefit from maximized profit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:10AM (1 child)
There are maximize-profit outfits, there are non-profit outfits, and there are outfits for whom "enough" is enough.
It's sad how for some people "enough" is never enough.
ISTM that these people have tiny dicks and constantly feel a need to compensate.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:29AM
Probably but they cause no harm except to failures who are also consumed by avarice and even that is only perceived harm rather than actual harm. Wealth is not remotely finite; having a hissy that someone has more than you is no less greedy than those who're compensating.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Monday June 19 2017, @03:03PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @11:13PM
There are thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of examples of Socialist workplaces worldwide who haven't taken that route.
...and it sounds like you're talking about an ESOP, which is still Capitalist and is something entirely different.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:40AM
Not true of wages which get paid before the "capitalist" gets their profit. But is true of pension funds and other nebulous promises of future gain.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 18 2017, @11:02AM (1 child)
There IS such a thing as an overpriced lunch. I think that is the most common complaint, regarding education. Sure, education has to be paid for, but impoverishing the student for life means you're probably paying for that education multiple times. And, meanwhile, the colleges and universities are sucking at the government teat for themselves.
I have little idea how to fix the system, but I can recognize that they system is fucked.
You don't have to be an electronics expert to recognize that a charred, twisted, half melted circuit board is fucked. Just one look should convince you of that simple fact.
I know, I know, there's a simple solution to overpriced lunches. Just don't order one, right? Well, part of the problem is, the education system is teaching people how to determine value, and that education system is part of the fucked up system. Lower education seems to be in cahoots with higher education, indoctrinating the masses to believe that education is fairly priced, and essential to success and happiness.
Of course, everything is quite rosy for those who manage to land a nice scholarship, and/or have rich parents to start with. 4, 6, maybe even 12 years of college, without ever signing on for a loan.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:59PM
Over even the moderate term, it's a self-correcting problem. They're going to start losing money as less people opt for a college education. That will likely drive prices down but definitely keep them from growing once the problem is groked. As long as we can keep the feds from throwing good money after bad at least.
Regardless, we don't need probably half of the college graduates we have. Gender studies? Liberal arts? Get a fucking job and quit wasting my money to be indoctrinated to hate me. Trade schools ain't anywhere near as expensive as college and will get you 90+% of the earnings you could manage out of a useful college degree.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.