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The idea that American workers are being left in the dust because they lack technological savvy does not stand up to scrutiny. Our focus should be on coordination and communication between workers and employers.
Technology enthusiasts and entrepreneurs are among the loudest voices declaiming this conventional wisdom (see "The Hunt for Qualified Workers").
Two recent developments have heightened debate over the idea of a "skills gap": an unemployment rate below 5 percent, and the growing fear that automation will render less-skilled workers permanently unemployable.
Proponents of the idea tell an intuitively appealing story: information technology has hit American firms like a whirlwind, intensifying demand for technical skills and leaving unprepared American workers in the dust. The mismatch between high employer requirements and low employee skills leads to bad outcomes such as high unemployment and slow economic growth.
The problem is, when we look closely at the data, this story doesn't match the facts. What's more, this view of the nation's economic challenges distracts us from more productive ways of thinking about skills and economic growth while promoting unproductive hand-wringing and a blinkered focus on only the supply side of the labor market—that is, the workers.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608707/the-myth-of-the-skills-gap/
What do you think, is there a shortage of skilled workers ??
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @05:03PM (2 children)
Not just the US, similar story here in Britain. In my case, after finding that even though there's an alleged 'skills shortage' I couldn't get a job despite having the 'skills', so, I've jumped from IT to woodworking, as it's something I always wanted to try anyway (up to this point my career has been all IT, Electronics, 'Science' and metal-bashing...).
The money isn't great (in fact, it's piss-poor), and it's quite telling that all my (similarly piss-poor paid) workmates have local accents, whereas most of the other businesses in the area foreign ones abound...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:51PM (1 child)
Suma Corporation is the largest worker-owned cooperative in UK.
They don't have poverty wages there.
They democratically decided that every worker-owner there is paid a proper wage. [google.com]
You might want to look into starting your own co-op, based on their model.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:32AM
Thanks for that, I was unaware of this group, and your suggestion about starting a co-op based on their model has a lot of merit, I was planning on going the 'self employed, one man band route..' I'll have to see how applicable the whole idea is to what I'm currently doing and have another think about this.
Looking through the article you linked to, and the differences between the way they work and the way the organisation I currently work for do things, I really had to laugh when I saw
“Members are always on the lookout for the forming of cliques, and people behaving a selfish and individualistic way,”
'cliques', Oh yes, the organisation I currently work for is riddled with them, in fact, seems to specialise in hiring manglement types who either bring with them ready formed ones or create them as soon as they arrive and that is, in my view, the root cause of a lot of their current problems..and some future ones they're currently blissfully unaware of (not my circus, not my monkeys but Rule #1 when hiring people, forget the Internet, just ask the ex-customers of the family business they inherited and ran into the ground about their supposed skills.).
'selfish', again, yes, I see that as being a problem, and on a daily basis I see it at work and it causes friction, delays etc. etc. ..
'individualistic', for what they do, maybe, but I'd have a problem seeing that as a negative quality, as I'm sick of telling manglement, you want everything to be the same? use CNC machines and robots, wooden products made by hand will vary depending on who makes/turns them, the clue's in the 'hand made' bit.. no matter how many stupid template designs you come up with there will be variations (I should point out, just to add to the fun, these templates were designed and posited by a manglement type who has never used a tool in his life, other than a screwdriver and maybe an electric drill, yet he's an expert on the use of lathes, routers etc. no understanding about the limitations of the tools, and yet we have to humour him..)
Sorry, this has developed into a bit of a minor rant, it's been a bad week..anyhoo, the idea that you can have an organisation without the 'Bob, the born leader' types appeals greatly to me at the moment.