Off Track There Are Jobs Begging For Trained Workers, But Our College-Focused Education System Is Not Filling Them

I was at McDonald’s once when the cash registers went down. The kids at the counter just stood there, helpless. The assistant manager dashed from register to register, adding up the orders.

That was a while back. By now, I’d guess that the assistant manager has a degree in computer science.

What about the kids who didn’t even try to add? Where are the jobs for people who can push a button with a picture of french fries on it, but can’t use basic skills to solve a problem?

Once there were jobs in this valley for people without much education. When the canneries closed, workers went from sorting fruit to sorting silicon chips. Production workers were supposed to check their brains by the door. They didn’t have to think, or communicate, or calculate. If there was a problem, someone else solved it. If there was a decision to be made, someone else made it.

This has changed across Silicon Valley. There are plenty of jobs, but it takes a lot more to get in the door.

Intel isn’t hiring machine operators anymore. They’re being replaced by “self-sustaining technicians,” who are expected to analyze data on the machine’s performance, decide whether it’s operating within tolerances, trouble-shoot problems, evaluate and train other workers and work in teams to discuss and implement quality improvements. They need to understand statistics, intermediate algebra, chemistry and physics.

“This is not your father’s factory,” says Tracy Koon, Intel’s corporate affairs manager.

A few years ago, the average technician had a high school education. Now the average technician has an A.A. degree from a community college.

“Five years ago, if you told a supervisor his manufacturing workers would be talking with design engineers about new products, he’d laugh at you,” says Cheryl Fields-Tyler, workforce excellence director for the American Electronics Association. Now it’s the norm.

Administrative support workers also are taking on new roles. “Secretaries are becoming information systems managers,” says Fields-Tyler.

People who work with their hands have to work with their brains, too. To get into a construction apprenticeship, “You need good reading and math skills, and the ability to follow instructions,” says John Neece, CEO of the Construction Trades Council. “It helps to have computer skills.”

By good reading skills, he means a 12th-grade reading level, or better: A construction worker has to read blueprints and change orders, and understand complex bid documents. By good math skills, he means algebra, geometry and, if possible, trigonometry.

As the cost of building materials goes up, and customers demand lower costs, workers must work faster and smarter.

“There’s a false perception that if you don’t do well in school, you can go into a trade, says Bob MacLean, a National Semiconductor vice president. “If you don’t do well in school, you can’t get a job.”

On “Happy Days,” Fonzie represented the kids who were bad with books but good with their hands. Fonzie doesn’t have much of a future, MacLean observes. “There are no more jobs for grease monkeys. Auto mechanics have to read all that fancy electronic equipment, diagnose the problem and fix computer things in your car. They can’t just turn a wrench.”

Many of Larry Baumann’s auto shop students don’t read well enough to become professional mechanics, says the Wilcox High teacher. “The GM service manual is written at a 14th-grade reading level. To fix a car, you need a two-year college degree.”

Once it was believed that technology would dumb-down 21st-century jobs. Instead, technology eliminated the most repetitive, robotic jobs, and made everything else a lot more complex.

In the high-tech workplace, workers are responsible for continuously improving quality by analyzing statistical information, and working in teams with co-workers. Cutting across all jobs is a demand for people who can use math to solve problems and use the English language to communicate.

“In an amazing number of companies, front-line workers have some interaction with customers,” says the AEA’s Fields-Tyler. “Communications skill isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s a must have.”

Solectron, a contract manufacturer that makes computer boards, is expanding rapidly, with entry-level jobs for machine operators, materials handlers, clerical and data-entry workers.

A materials handler, for instance, needs good reading and writing skills and basic math. He has to calculate inventories and communicate with people on the line about their requirements. To move up to a technician’s job, it helps to have algebra.

“It’s not row after row of people with soldering irons,” says Al Cotton, senior director of human resources. Line workers “have to work through persuasion, communicate, read and understand instructions, give presentations to sway your team members, explain a process to team members.”

Team members must learn how to analyze problems, so they can contribute to solutions. “Even if they never run into an algebra problem after they leave school, it’s still valuable,” Cotton says. “Algebra teaches you to reason and process information, to think logically about solving problems. To do quality control you have to be able to do simple algebraic equations.”

Komag, which makes hard disks, is expanding in San Jose and Milpitas, with manufacturing jobs for workers coming out of high school. But of 10 people who call about a job, only one gets hired.

Workers are on the job three 12-hour days a week, plus alternating Sundays. Base pay is $6.45 an hour, with four hours of overtime per shift.

Some applicants are automatically disqualified because they show up late at the assessment center. About 25-30 percent can’t get past the basic skills test, which requires eighth-grade math and English skills.

Komag also puts applicants through a teamwork exercise: A group of five or six is given instructions on building something with a set of blocks, then observed to see how they work together. The final step is an interview with a panel including other line workers.

Once hired, workers are encouraged to take classes on-site or at community colleges to train for technician jobs.

Most large high-tech companies have extensive training programs: Intel spent $120 million in 1994, most of it on training factory workers.

Often, workers must take remedial English and math. Immigrants must learn to communicate in English, so they can participate in quality teams.

Industry people and school people agree: There is a disconnect between what schools are teaching and what employers are demanding.

Schools are focused almost totally on getting students into college, even though 40 percent never try college, and two-thirds will not earn a college degree.

“For so long we’ve said college, college, college,” says Neece. “It’s like, if you don’t go to college, you’re not very smart.”

“Everybody wants Johnny to go to college,” says Jim Vice of Vi-Tec Manufacturing, chairman of the National Tooling Machine Association’s apprenticeship program. “If Johnny’s not fit for college, he bums around, works at McDonald’s, and develops a bad attitude.”

Meanwhile, apprenticeships go unfilled, and machine shop owners are desperate for skilled workers. An apprentice machinist averages $10 an hour with overtime; a journeyman machinist can make $60,000 to $70,000 a year. High school graduates need a ninth-grade reading level, algebra, geometry and preferably trig, computer skills and mechanical aptitude.

“What’s the purpose of school?” asks Richard Schorske, director of Workforce Silicon Valley, which is working to link schools, community colleges and employers. “To go on in school? That’s not good enough. The point is: Can they do the work? Increasingly, they can’t because they’re illiterate and innumerate.”

Nationwide, half of high school graduates are not prepared for skilled jobs, according to the 1991 Labor Department SCANS (Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) report. Whether students are headed for college or a job, they need strong academic skills - and the ability to apply what they know to solve problems.

“The old line was that the fast track is the college track, the slow track is the applied track,” says Schorske. “That’s ridiculous. We hear complaints about college graduates too, that they can’t apply what they know. The connection to the real world of work is missing big time. To make that connection is not dumbing down the curriculum; it’s moving it up.”

MEMO: Joanne Jacobs is a columnist for the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News.