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Friday, March 29, 2024

Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

In "Skills Don’t Pay the Bills," Adam Davidson delves into many aspects of employment in the US. 

Excerpt:

Nearly six million factory jobs, almost a third of the entire manufacturing industry, have disappeared since 2000. And while many of these jobs were lost to competition with low-wage countries, even more vanished because of computer-driven machinery that can do the work of 10, or in some cases, 100 workers. Those jobs are not coming back, but many believe that the industry’s future (and, to some extent, the future of the American economy) lies in training a new generation for highly skilled manufacturing jobs — the ones that require people who know how to run the computer that runs the machine.

This is partly because advanced manufacturing is really complicated. Running these machines requires a basic understanding of metallurgy, physics, chemistry, pneumatics, electrical wiring and computer code. It also requires a worker with the ability to figure out what’s going on when the machine isn’t working properly. And aspiring workers often need to spend a considerable amount of time and money taking classes like Goldenberg’s to even be considered. Every one of Goldenberg’s students, he says, will probably have a job for as long as he or she wants one.

Full article: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills – NYTimes.com.

Some points and comments:

1. Manufacturing has become reliant on computers.  Today’s skilled factory worker is a "hybrid of an old-school machinist and a computer programmer." Students need to learn how to write computer code to program machines to do the manufacturing work faster. Classes in advanced manufacturing are filled to capacity.

2. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. factories need skilled workers. It's estimated that roughly 600,000 jobs are available for people with the right skills.

3. High skill jobs in advanced manufacturing are low-paying jobs. Getting the education to do the work is expensive, but the jobs do not pay much more than working at McDonald's. 

4. The problem is not a "skills gap."  Factory managers are having a hard time finding workers for $10/hr jobs.  A skill shortage without concurrent pressure to raise wages is odd; supply-demand theory would predict otherwise. This is a puzzling disconnect. 

Excerpt:

'Trying to hire high-skilled workers at rock-bottom rates,' the Boston Group study asserted, 'is not a skills gap.' The study’s conclusion, however, was scarier. Many skilled workers have simply chosen to apply their skills elsewhere rather than work for less, and few young people choose to invest in training for jobs that pay fast-food wages. As a result, the United States may soon have a hard time competing in the global economy. The average age of a highly skilled factory worker in the U.S. is now 56. 'That’s average,' says Hal Sirkin, the lead author of the study. 'That means there’s a lot who are in their 60s. They’re going to retire soon.' And there are not enough trainees in the pipeline, he said, to replace them.'

5. The "fake" skills gap threatens to create a real skills gap. On the flip side of the issue, as jobs are moved to China and others are replaced by machines, the incentive to train for these low-paying jobs decreases. 

 

 

6. Years ago, it was easier to match worker supply and demand. "Now workers and manufacturers 'need to recreate a system' — a new social contract — in which their incentives are aligned." Global trade and technological change have and will continue to force changes.

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