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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: 5, Interesting) by julian on Thursday June 29 2017, @09:39PM (1 child)
I'll give him credit if and when he ever does something deserving of it. Apprenticeships are not a good idea for this problem. I'll say this much: it is, at minimum, better than doing nothing at all. Even that is contingent on how it's implemented. Just as his financial situation is likely a state of indebtedness and negative wealth, Trump has an essentially infinite debt of good-will he needs to pay back before anything good he does actually starts accruing positive value. I'm more likely to believe anything that appears good is actually another scheme to funnel government money into his personal businesses, or the businesses of his family.
Fully subsidized trade school, and higher education besides, is a better solutions. Every student who graduates high school should be given the chance to go on to university, trade, or technical schools and it should be free at time of use. They pay back into the system when they start making money, through taxes. Fund health care the same way, and now we have a population with a sliver of breathing room to allow for investment in themselves.
Society should be organized such that basic needs are sufficiently met that they can focus on self-improvement to maximize the fulfillment of their own personal potential and rise as far as their own merit will allow. Conservatives are always banging on about meritocracy and then just expecting the world to naturally organize itself into one. A meritocracy is NOT a natural state. It has to be deliberately created and maintained.
Some people will fail, and some will succeed. Not everyone will be equal. Yet failure need not and should not be so brutal as to reflect poorly on the rest of society for what indignity and human misery we are willing to inflict on the unlucky. And success need not be so extravagant and out-sized as it is now in order to incentive progress and effort.
We want society and civilization to be more like a sport, and less like a war. In sport, the losing team isn't enslaved, starved to death, or killed. Everyone goes home regardless and the mere status of being a winner is sufficient to motivate everyone to try harder. It's a myth, though a well subscribed one, that we need a Dickensian sword hanging over the heads of the poor to motivate them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @03:39PM
Yes, society should invest in its own future. Sadly so many people don't care about such things, or they simply dont understand the importance.