OT: Creating Skilled Workers

[fuzzalow]

The erosion of the USA manufacturing base & capacity is a topic that could fill volumes. There is plenty of blame to heap crap on virtually everyone and everything: corporate profit maximization; diminution of skills & train-ability in the semi-skilled labor force; tax code treatment of capital investment; comparative advantage dispersed via globalization; tariffs and access to markets; etc, etc, etc. Those factors off the top of my head.

But here is a story that might be indicative of a possible change in tide. True, just a drop in the bucket, but it is better to start somewhere than crying about how bad things are and not trying something to fix it.

NYTimes Video on Creating Skilled Workers (http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/11/30/business/100000002578175/creating-skilled-workers.html)

Quite true that the treatment of blue-collar professions in Germany is not subject to abuse or stigmatization in a manner as often stupidly resounded by certain interest groups in the USA.

[goonster]

The German system requires a tremendous amount of buy-in from everyone involved: apprentices who give up any realistic chance of higher education at age 16, businesses who host training programs for folks they will likely not end up employing, unions, and an electorate willing to fund higher levels of public spending. The highly skilled workforce also results in greatly reduced flexibility in the labor market.

[Ahneida Ride]

look at "education"

PhD qualifying exams (mathematics) have gone from graduate level material to
to junior/senior level math to freshman calculus .

and one year of course work has also been eliminated.

[sg8357]

The highly skilled workforce also results in greatly reduced flexibility in the labor market.

Yet the Germans have done well out of the Great Recession.

Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Euro

[FlashUNC]

Henry Ford -- all his famous warts aside -- paid, what, double the going rate for assembly line workers so that his employees could afford to buy the Model T?

It's a virtuous cycle after all...

[R2D2]

Henry Ford -- all his famous warts aside -- paid, what, double the going rate for assembly line workers so that his employees could afford to buy the Model T?

It's a virtuous cycle after all...

That was the German model for the VW. A worker would have a savings account and at the end of the year purchase a VW.

[R2D2]

.......

But here is a story that might be indicative of a possible change in tide. True, just a drop in the bucket, but it is better to start somewhere than crying about how bad things are and not trying something to fix it.

.......
It is a start and the Germans are doing it. Not us.

[zap]

Henry Ford -- all his famous warts aside -- paid, what, double the going rate for assembly line workers so that his employees could afford to buy the Model T?

It's a virtuous cycle after all...

On a unit basis, Ford paid his workers peanuts. Higher productivity was key but Ford knew he needed to retain workers to achieve that. As you posted, win win for those involved.

[Saint Vitus]

Good piece, my wife and I were grousing about this just last night. High school is really nothing more than college prep, any vocational training curriculum is practically gone.

The erosion of the USA manufacturing base & capacity is a topic that could fill volumes. There is plenty of blame to heap crap on virtually everyone and everything: corporate profit maximization; diminution of skills & train-ability in the semi-skilled labor force; tax code treatment of capital investment; comparative advantage dispersed via globalization; tariffs and access to markets; etc, etc, etc. Those factors off the top of my head.

But here is a story that might be indicative of a possible change in tide. True, just a drop in the bucket, but it is better to start somewhere than crying about how bad things are and not trying something to fix it.

NYTimes Video on Creating Skilled Workers (http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/11/30/business/100000002578175/creating-skilled-workers.html)

Quite true that the treatment of blue-collar professions in Germany is not subject to abuse or stigmatization in a manner as often stupidly resounded by certain interest groups in the USA.

[FlashUNC]

It's funny, from what I've seen anecdotally, the demand for skilled tradespeople is still high. There's a welder I know who just moved away back to oversee a commercial welding and machine shop operation in Denver that he used to work at, and he was busier than all get-out when he was here.

Construction is making a comeback, and another buddy who's a phenomenal tileworker (second generation and inheritor of his dad's business) is as busy as I've seen.

But I agree with the thesis that we've become a "college degree or nothing" society, with no place for skilled tradespeople to train and learn a career.

[Aaron O]

Henry Ford -- all his famous warts aside -- paid, what, double the going rate for assembly line workers so that his employees could afford to buy the Model T?

It's a virtuous cycle after all...

Bingo - the people who created the industrial base in this country looked down the road at the big picture...and they KNEW the products and industries they built. This stands in sharp contrast to the environment today - where major companies are run by MBAs with little knowledge of the products they sell and focus on short term stock manipulation instead of long term profit. They get REWARDED for doing poorly and having to lay off workers.

I'm well aware of Ford's faults, but he left something behind...something that added wealth to the country as a whole. I'll take him over the current batch of CEOs primarily interested in featherbedding their networks anyday.

It's also hard to innovate when you have to build in Taiwan/China and the factory is just going to end up stealing your product and selling a knock off for half off anyway.

[blakcloud]

Chris King has been talking about this for a few years and even has gone to Capitol Hill to discuss it. Click here for one article.
(http://btaoregon.org/2012/09/chris-king-delivers-bikes-mean-business-message-to-the-white-house/)

[jmoore]

Like this guy: http://youtu.be/dTcvmmOkqJI

[sokyroadie]

I am the General Manager of a relatively small (75 employee) job shop in a semi-rural setting (town of 15,000), we are a one stop shop. We do welding (all types),machining (CNC and manual), rigging (one piece to whole plant moves) Crane service etc. We find it hard to hire qualified employees and try to bring in coop students from the machining and welding programs at the local high school to start the training process. Since we are the only local shop that offers a decent benefit package we can usually keep them.

Each year the competition for the best people gets tougher and tougher. Kentucky has a very good secondary trade school college system, that caters to the needs of many rural students with 70 campuses across the state. http://www.kctcs.edu/


Jeff

[cnighbor1]

skilled workers If that term applies to skills used to physically produce something than it is big decision to do it all your working career
Has an architect I used by brain a lot but that had to translate into construction documents. Lucky has I got into my late 50's CADD drafting came along. because to physically draw those documents would have very difficult to do after 55
Than to stand at a machine and make nearly the same item day after day and be healthy till you retire is one big decision to MAKE at say 20 years old

[Gsinill]

"...give up any realistic chance of higher education at age 16" - why is that?

The German system requires a tremendous amount of buy-in from everyone involved: apprentices who give up any realistic chance of higher education at age 16, businesses who host training programs for folks they will likely not end up employing, unions, and an electorate willing to fund higher levels of public spending. The highly skilled workforce also results in greatly reduced flexibility in the labor market.

[fuzzalow]

skilled workers If that term applies to skills used to physically produce something than it is big decision to do it all your working career
Has an architect I used by brain a lot but that had to translate into construction documents. Lucky has I got into my late 50's CADD drafting came along. because to physically draw those documents would have very difficult to do after 55
Than to stand at a machine and make nearly the same item day after day and be healthy till you retire is one big decision to MAKE at say 20 years old

I doubt that this was your intent, but that sounds like an antiquated perspective on labor capital. You make it sound like it were in the benefit of the employer to stagnate to a static product line manufactured by an inflexible; unadaptive and uncreative workforce. None of these conditions can now be held as viable in the modern global marketplace.

The definition of "skilled worker" imputes value-added intelligence to the work labor process, does it not?