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posted by cmn32480 on Friday August 25 2017, @03:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the do-we-need-a-bridge dept.

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 ??


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @09:19PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @09:19PM (#559115)

    As others have said, employers pay people too little and therefore fail to attract truly competent people.

    In software development, you have scores of graduates who can't even write a simple FizzBuzz program, as if most colleges and universities have become little more than money-making degree mills. Yet, most employers will not employ people without degrees, even if they are well-educated and can easily do the job. Degree discrimination drives away even more talent.

    Employers also don't want to offer on-the-job training to get people up to speed, because that costs money. The shortsightedness is amazing, so no wonder they're claiming that there is a lack of qualified people.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @09:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @09:50PM (#559124)

    Captcha: Greed

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:37AM (2 children)

    by TheGratefulNet (659) on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:37AM (#559216)

    at my workplace, we hired a lab admin to do (mostly) wiring level stuff and racking/stacking. we hired a very young guy with very little experience, but with a good attitude and the ability to learn.

    have we sent him to any kind of data center wiring training? have we even mentored him on it? no, of course not.

    and yet, I see my boss constantly annoyed at him for not knowing what is in (the boss') mind. he's put into a tough situation and he's all stressed out.

    we made the decision to 'hire on the cheap' and we got what we paid for, but we are not happy. when I say 'we' I mean just the boss.

    it pisses me off to see this happen. and there's little I can do since I am not in mgmt and have no say as to what goes on.

    most american tech companies are broken by design. it pains me to see this happen over and over again ;(

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:37PM (1 child)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:37PM (#559429)

      have we sent him to any kind of data center wiring training? have we even mentored him on it? no, of course not.
      and yet, I see my boss constantly annoyed at him for not knowing

      Ya know, before I got my BS degree I got an AS degree to get the job to pay for the BS degree etc, and the local uni won't teach stuff like wiring color codes (for like 25 pair cables, etc) and 66 and 110 punchdown blocks and terminating and testing cat-5 cable or fiber because they're too high end and every uni grad will spend their careers exclusively writing compilers and solving automata theory problems (I took those classes for my BS degree). That combined with HR demanding a BS degree because they can due to unemployment results in people unqualified to wire a datacenter being stuck wiring a datacenter. I got my first "real" job at this financial services company and mystified by boss by already knowing all that lower level stuff from having taken classes. It was not hard to learn and the pay was "OK" for an AS degree.
        Honestly they should have hired an AS community college grad not a uni grad.

      It sounds great that we graduate only cardiologists now, we're all cardiologists now, isn't that great? The problem is there's more than a few cardiologists who can't put on a band-aid because they were too busy memorizing heart artery names, while most of the real world workload is for band-aid level medical problems.

      • (Score: 1) by redneckmother on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:27PM

        by redneckmother (3597) on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:27PM (#559486)

        Wow - wiring and termination... learned that on the job decades ago. Brings back a lot of memories. I still have BIX and Krone punchdown tools, an AMP RJ-xx crimper, and various coax tools. The other day, I ran across an old ThickNet vampire tap - I plan on putting it in a shadow box, as a nerd conversation piece.

        --
        Mas cerveza por favor.