Spokane7
58°
September 6, 2010 in Opinion
We must lift all workers
There is a certain irony this Labor Day at a time of record unemployment and widespread economic uncertainty. We celebrate workers who keep the nation’s economic engine running, but millions who want jobs cannot find them and millions more are involuntarily working part time because they can’t find full-time work.
All this means far too many workers and their families are struggling this year, and the traditional family Labor Day cookout, if it occurs at all, consists of fewer steaks, more hot dogs and cheaper beer.
For low-income, low-skill workers, unemployment is particularly pronounced. Long-term unemployment is at record highs, and 54 percent of those who have been out of work for more than six months have only a high school diploma or less.
To their credit, the nation’s policymakers have recognized that putting people back to work is a top public priority. Since late winter, they have introduced numerous bills designed to spur jobs creation. But fixing the unemployment crisis requires more than creating an environment in which the private sector can create new positions.
The harsh truth is that far too many of today’s workers lack the skills necessary to compete for 21st century jobs. This presents a pressing problem because many of the jobs that evaporated with the sinking economy aren’t coming back, and positions that are being created require more skills than a significant percentage of the current work force has.
Economists project that 63 percent of jobs in 2018 will require some education or training beyond high school. Yet just over half of today’s work force meets this threshold. If current trends continue, by 2018 the work force will have a deficit of 3 million associate’s, bachelor’s and advanced degrees. In addition, the nation also will need 4.7 million new workers with postsecondary certificates.
Much of this shortage is due to simple demographics. The baby boom generation is the bulk of today’s work force and they are beginning to retire and will continue to do so en masse over the next two decades. Further, there simply aren’t enough young adults entering the work force to meet demand.
Ensuring the nation’s continued economic competitiveness will require investing in our existing human resources and making sure new and existing workers have the requisite skills to qualify for tomorrow’s jobs.
Public discourse on the nation’s economic health and 21st century jobs too often fails to consider low-income workers. But this is a group in which we must invest to both improve their skills so they can contribute to the economy and land jobs of the future and to reduce their unemployment rates, an area in which they are overrepresented.
An important part of the solution is increasing awareness and political will to address this national challenge as well as more resources and investment from public and private sources. Promising strategies include career pathways that link adult literacy and basic skills to postsecondary education and training and that provide academic and support services that lower-income, lower-skilled students need to complete postsecondary credentials.
Research shows that low-skilled and low-income adults can succeed in college when they receive targeted supports designed to promote persistence and completion. We also see promise in student financial aid programs crafted specifically for adult students. Such programs consider family budgets and the need for flexible courses and programs.
It also is critical to have better data and intelligence on how adult students are progressing through adult education programs, English language programs, training programs, and college and to identify the points at which we lose them so we can design better strategies to help them persist and complete credentials.
This year as we observe our perennial Labor Day traditions, policymakers entrusted with addressing some of the nation’s most pressing problems should also commit to consider all the nation’s human assets, including lower-skilled and low-wage workers, and to ramp up investments in postsecondary education and training and improve programs and policies that shape such programs. Such investment will ensure the nation can meet future skills demands and maintain our economic competitiveness into the future. And it will help ensure we can have even more to celebrate during future Labor Days.
Evelyn Ganzglass is the director of work force development at the Center for Law and Social Policy.
Trudy Rubin: Egyptians say no to Islamists 
schleufer on September 06 at 9:22 a.m.
you never hear about how many jobs are lost to lean manufacturing.
Dazzeetrader1980 on September 06 at 1:58 p.m.
We need to generate new industires. We need new ways of looking at jobs. We continue to pursue the same old jobs, we have the same old economy….one that’s threatened by foreign countries ( IE China and India).
I do not think the old jobs ( $1/hr over there vs union wages here) will return ….and perhaps we’ve lost that battle. No matter though, the world follows the US . New industries, new thinking will generate new jobs….jobs that need training. Unions need to butt out…and given the job they’ve done…they’ll die a natural death unless the taxpayers continue to shore them up with Obama as a vehicle.
Only a look to the future will secure the American worker. Let Americans do what they do best….figure it out.
jwc928 on September 06 at 8:48 p.m.
Excuse yourself if you think that taxpayer financed jobs ie: stimulus jobs help the economy. Continual circulation of tax dollars is a joke. If the private sector is not creating jobs, their is no growth in the economy! When a small business pays close to 50% of their income in various taxes, and has to live by a stack of laws that determine how much, when, how it has to be reported and who knows WHAT else. I am not a small business owner but if you look at the rules, you probably wouldn’t be either. US laws, State laws, and local laws create an ugly atmosphere for small business. Make believe you are opening a restaurant, and check the BS you have to go through.
Montauban on September 06 at 9:01 p.m.
‘schleufer’ and ‘daisy’ have good answers.
But, do Americans want to take jobs; if they are available - or picking veggies or fruits; at least for a while…of doing day-labor jobs; at least for a while, or working at Wal-Mart; at least for a while…you know, those jobs that the illegals - all fourteen million or so of them, are taking if they are working at all and not on the dolls of the taxpayers.
I never had to face that terrible situation in my life, but to be unemployed and having to face a choice of whether to eat and pay partially some of the bills of the household, I guess I could lower myself to a humble status, and bite the bud, and go to work doing something until the job market for me opens up once again.
But do we forget unions - the very entities which forced government to think of the worker first? Nope, especially when the unions now have raised union wages, minimum wages, forced the increase of all costs of goods sold and the markets in general to escalate so fast, nobody can keep up.
Basketball players tossing and bouncing a ball around, making multi-millions of dollars, and being allowed to have ancillary sponsors. Example of an economy and mindset gone haywire.
Yes, job levels and all must be considered as a result of education, as one example. Generally, the “blue collar jobs” go to the semi-skilled and unskilled, but in some cases, these jobs pay more than a supervisor with a “white collar”.
The government needs to do more for the people of the US to enhance jobs, and prevent corporations from relocating to foreign countries - and investing in them in order to expand their interests to foreign worker’s. The President’s eyes always move left or right and never center on the US issues.