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Who
is responsible for training skilled workers?
Melvyn D. Magree Originally published in the Reader Weekly July 17, 2008 Dick Palmer, columnist in the Duluth Budgeteer, has frequently complained that nothing is manufactured in the United States anymore. Despite being shown contrary evidence, he still maintains that nothing is manufactured in the United States anymore. On Tuesday, July 1, 2008, the Star Tribune Business section had an article "State needs to train more precision-manufacturing workers". Larger corporations may be scaling back, but smaller manufacturers are having a hard time filling jobs. Jaime Nolan, executive director of Minnesota Precision Manufacturing Association (MPMA), said, "Smaller precision and contract manufacturing companies are thriving. They are growing and in need of help [finding workers]." So, who will provide the training for these workers? These companies? Individuals interested in manufacturing jobs? Or government through technical colleges? And who will pay for the training? The MPMA provides part of the answer on its website, www.mpma.com. It is providing free training in certain aspects of manufacturing, including shop math and print reading. It also provides a couple of scholarships for technical college. And as a demonstration of the need for skilled workers, it has an initial list of over 24 openings for manufacturing positions, mostly in the Twin Cities. Many of these listings are for multiple openings. David Brooks of the New York Times (1) and others have written of the imbalance of skills with openings in this country. One wrote that the problem isn't lack of jobs but lack of people to fill them (2). If the skills needed are constantly changing, who will be responsible for supplying the market with people with these skills? Once upon a time, those who needed help would hire apprentices and train them. The apprentice would do much of the grunt work and gradually learn more and more about the trade. Even doctors would be trained this way. As the needed skills grew in complexity, the cost of apprenticeships became burdensome to the employer. It’s one thing to hire a fifteen-year-old, give him a place to sleep, three meals a day, and a few coins for spending money. It’s quite another to pay an eighteen-year-old who will probably need a car to get to work. Once upon a time, an eighth-grade education was considered adequate for many jobs. My father quit after the eleventh grade and became a bicycle messenger. Somewhere along the line he learned dental prosthetics and wound up with his own business. Now a high-school education is required for many entry-level jobs, but technical college or even a four-year degree is required more and more. Once upon a time, parents were expected to pay someone to teach their own children to read and write. Adam Smith thought so in “Wealth of Nations”. Unfortunately this is still true in much of the world. I think it was Nicholas Kristof who wrote that he would bet on China over India for greater economic success (3). He argued that the illiteracy rate in India is far too high but literacy in China is almost universal among younger people. He argued that China provided education for a much larger portion of its young people than India did. Now American communities and states provide free tax-supported schools through the twelfth grade. Once upon a time, private colleges were relatively expensive but land grant colleges (for example, University of Minnesota) were relatively expensive. People younger than me have written about paying five or ten dollars a credit hour at U of M, Now UMD charges about $300 per credit. A full-course load with fees is over $8,000 per year (2007-2008 academic year). When I started college I was earning more than a dollar an hour. How many starting students are earning thirty dollars an hour? Especially those who didn’t get a scholarship like I did. If it is becoming financially burdensome for many to get the education they need for the skills that our society needs, what is going to happen to our economy? We already have a shortage of doctors, nurses, and machinists. What other jobs aren’t being filled because there are too few trained for them? What happens to the fortunes of the very wealthy when there are not enough people to do the work that helped create those fortunes? The only “self-made” men live in stone-age forests; the rest have to depend on the ideas and labors of many others. It is clear that we will have to drastically change our financial support of education. Baby steps like Americorps VISTA can help a bit. VISTA awards over $4,000 in scholarship money after service. That’s one semester at a land grant college. One thing we’ll have to change drastically is our attitude towards taxes. Taxes are our seed corn. If we don’t have taxes to pay for our roads, commerce slows. If we don’t have taxes to educate our populace, the economy slows. (1) "The Cognitive Age", David Brooks, New York Times, 2008-05-02 (2) "Skills Deficit Makes 'Creating Jobs' a Pipe Dream", Charles Wheelan, Yahoo Finance, 2008-01-28 (3) "In Its Match with China, India Penalizes Its Own Team", Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 2008-04-2007 ©2008 Melvyn D. Magree |