Despite the recent good news that the unemployment rate is dropping, the labor force participation rate continues to fall. Tyler Cowen has commenters blaming the ‘dismantling’ of unions.
I wonder how well that jives with what those of you out there in the staffing industry are seeing? I haven’t worked a desk recently, but I do talk to execs that buy a lot of staffing, and they certainly point to other problems.
Slouchers
My friend who manages various plants around the country for a Fortune 500 company here in the Twin Cities uses the word ‘slouchers’. He doesn’t necessarily mean this in a – won’t-get-off-the-couch – derogatory way. He means people who for whatever reason never decided to take their careers into their own hands. Whether it be poor parenting, crime, drugs, bad schools, bad diet, wrong choice of education, or just plain laziness – take your pick – they never decided to make themselves useful to society and have figured out at least temporarily some other way to survive.
Education Bubble
I’m not sure what the answer for this is. I spoke at a high school careers conference last year and suggested that for many who were being pushed into it, a four-year blah-major university education that saddled them with a six-figure loan was probably the worst way to start adulthood.
The school principle gave me a nasty look afterwards. I’m guessing she’s comped by college admission rates and not student success in life.
Anyone have a fix for the education bubble? Speak now before the major universities start going out of business.
Bad Policy
Cowen had a commenter, Dave Anthony, who nailed this part of the equation with a dash of sarcasm:
“One of the new ‘structural problems’ with the labor market is a predictable and direct result of the ridiculous PPACA law. Low skilled workers are going to have a harder and harder time finding full time work because the required benefits coverage is so outrageously expensive. So they are going to have to get multiple part-time jobs just to get by. Now if we can raise the minimum wage, we can make sure they’ll never find work again.”
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
To say we need an overhaul of our education system is an understatement, yet if you talk to any politician honestly about it (as I have) they’ll admit that education reform is political poison. If you want to stay in office, you don’t touch the model — you just try to increase the funding for it. And that’s Reason #654 why our education system blows.
The current model came into being to meet the needs of industrialism, and we’re far from that era. So you have things like kids learning cursive instead of computers, increased standardized testing that serves no one (if universities stopped asking for ACT/SAT scores, at least SOME of that burden would be gone), and waning frequency of the arts and creativity (one of the few things America still has a competitive edge on, but for how long?). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I did a huge investigative feature on that last part a few years ago; read it here:
http://volumeone.org/articles/2009/10/15/906_FEATURE_A_Dying_Art
If anyone has a ton of money that they want to throw at Staffing Talk so I can run for political office on the one-issue platform of education reform, I’ll consider it. Until then, I’ll just join Gregg in bitching and whining about it.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
I don’t see slouchers or PPACA as issues (PPACA hasn’t yet gone into effect), though I’ve talked to plenty of low skill, better than minimum wage employers who have a great many other issues. Two problems that I see, the first is a lack of training for certain skill sets. In the Metro-Detroit area we have one hands on training program for machinists-Focus Hope. It’s charitable and it’s budget has been slashed. Great opportunity for a kid who doesn’t go the college route, but where do I get training. Second is similiar, plenty of openings for engineering, bio-medical, medical and IT. Unfortunately, if you are a laid off auto worker with no more than a high school education getting an engineering degree at this point is not practical. More jobs than there are qualified people to fill them.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Thanks for your two cents, Jeff.
I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about people charging employers with just as much blame for the qualifications crisis (what I’m calling it) as the education system. Do you think employers should take charge and educate/train willing workers on how to master the skills needed at their workplaces?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Jeff
Employers are already preparing for PPACA. This includes both businesses and government agencies that are letting go of FTEs or reducing hours below the 30 hour threshold.
American businesses spend more than $125 billion per year on formal employee learning and development programs. This does not include the non-stop mentoring and and ad-hoc training that are now de rigueur in innovation-based enterprises.
However the best training available today is not done by the government, not done by business and not done by universities. Instead, it’s the free stuff like Khan and MOOCs and the like which any auto-worker with an internet connection can get 24 hours a day.
Not counting a certain level of personal responsibility on the part of the jobseeker, I think there ought to be a shared sense of responsibility among educators and employers. We’re living in a jobs marketplace where the demand for different skill sets is constantly changing and reinventing itself. If you earned your degree a decade ago, your skills could be somewhat irrelevant now. Employers need to be willing to help combat this skills deficit. On-the-job training needs to make a comeback.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0