Cuts In Crucial Educational Programs Could Cripple U.S. Economy
As the economy grows more complex and employers increase their demands for highly skilled workers, an important economic question arises:
Are we smart enough to live in the world we are creating? Job demands are getting so complicated that many people don’t have the skills to keep up. A few hundred years ago, doing long division was considered a major intellectual achievement. Now, routine jobs require high levels of schooling and intellectual effort.
A steelworker, for example, used to need only a strong back to do his job. Today, an uneducated laborer, no matter how muscular and willing to work, has no place in a modern mill.
People are finding that out in Decatur, Ala., where Trico Steel Co., an international joint venture, is building a $450 million mill to make 2.2 million tons of steel annually with 320 workers.
Trico already has announced that only people with college or technical school degrees will be hired. The jobs are strictly for metallurgists, computer programmers and other specialists. Automated equipment will do the kind of work laborers once did.
The demand for higher skills is growing at all levels in the economy. Even workers with college degrees aren’t guaranteed success unless they constantly update their abilities.
Recently I was reminded of how easy it is to fall behind. Last September I quit my job for nine months to take a fellowship.
When I returned to my job in June, I felt shell-shocked by how much technology I was expected to master. During my short absence, my department installed a complicated voice-mail system and changed our computer software.
I had to take lessons and study a manual just to answer my phone. I had to take three days of computer training. Then I had to take more classes to learn how to access the Internet. My electronic-mail system changed totally.
Cramming in so much training after a brief respite from the work world was exhausting. I wanted to give up journalism to sit in a field and watch over a bunch of sheep.
Now, after being on the job for several weeks, I am acclimated again. I can operate my computer without accidentally launching missiles in Ukraine. But my training courses have left me more worried about our nation’s ability to supply employers with workers who can keep up with changing technologies.
Our only hope for sustained economic growth is to boost education and training so much that learning becomes a lifelong habit for all American workers. Upgrading job skills should be our national obsession.
Ironically, Republicans in Congress are pushing to cut funding for the Job Training Partnership Act. GOP plans call for cuts in all educational programs ranging from Head Start for preschoolers to summer jobs programs for teenagers to “second-chance” job training for adults without diplomas. The cuts could seriously hurt the economy by denying employers, especially small businesses, access to competent workers.
Certainly cutting the federal budget deficit should be our No. 1 political priority. But protecting economically harmful programs, such as price supports for crops, while slashing support for job training is just dumb. If we want to maintain a technologically advanced economy, we have to be smart enough to realize that basic education and continual job training are vital.
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