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America has more than 6 million vacant jobs, yet the country is "facing a serious skills gap," Labor Secretary R. Alexander Acosta recently said. And last week his boss, President Donald Trump, said he wants to close this gap by directing $100 million of federal money into apprenticeship programs. Apprenticeships in the U.S. are generally known for training workers for blue collar jobs like plumbers or electricians, but with a little tweak, they could be the path to lucrative, white collar tech jobs across the country. Not just in coastal cities, but also in the Midwest, South, and across the Great Plains.
But to get there we need to erase the notion that highly paid jobs require a college degree. It's not always true. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, among others, has called for a shift in focus: "skills, not degrees. It's not skills at the exclusion of degrees. It's just expanding our perspective to go beyond degrees."
An academic degree signals to employers that a person has successfully completed a course of study, but it does not provide a clear assessment of someone's skills. Companies, especially in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) industries, are shifting their recruiting process from "where did you study?" to "what can you do?".
Germans have long cited their apprenticeship system as a factor in their economic success. Would it help America and elsewhere, too?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 29 2017, @06:38PM (3 children)
the claimed shortage now is a half million, and expected to be a million by 2020.
I cry bullshit on that. I know lots of coders who can't find work.
I've got an iPhone App I'm working on. Once it's in the App Store I should be able to get work as an iOS coder. But I won't qualify for Android despite having Java experience, and lots of other experience.
If a job post wants Python, they would do just as well hiring a Perl coder then training them.
There is no longer any budget for on-the-job training yet we are all expected to already have the required skills when we apply.
I once lost a contract because I didn't know GeoDjango. That job didn't really require GeoDjango, the client must have come up with that himself without asking someone who really knew Django.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RamiK on Thursday June 29 2017, @08:21PM (1 child)
Or, a friend of a friend already knew GeoDjango so they tailored the requirements to his resume...
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @08:44PM
There's no shortage of fake jobs for internal promotions or H1B fraud.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 30 2017, @12:14AM
And I don't qualify for mud-hut building even though I have a civil-engineering degree. Ain't life a bitch?