“Reading, Pa.-area manufacturers are increasingly finding that prospective workers lack the skill set required to perform necessary job functions like basic math and technical tasks. And if this trend continues to grow, it could compromise the ability of those companies to stay viable.
That’s the message Dan Fogarty, director of the Berks County Workforce Development Board, delivered to county commissioners Thursday.
“The skills shortage is noticeable now, and it is going to get worse before it gets better,” he said.
http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/area-manufacturers-increasingly-dealing-with-skill-set-shortages-commissioners-told”
One has to wonder how Mr Fogarty can overlook the fact that his employer (the State of Pennsylvania) does not provide adequate basic math skills for people to be employed by industry in the state, and that Berks county has had to develop a (taxpayer paid) program with local colleges to provide remedial training for what is considered a fundamental requirement of public education (also taxpayer based).
Additionally, is it possible that this enormous gap between acceptable and employable skill levels and the enormous number of open jobs simply provides good fodder for the press? If in fact manufacturing deeply needs this specialized help, shouldn’t it create and develop a track to Make Their Own highly skilled employees? Instead, I would submit that training budgets are lower now than they were before the economic recession that Mr Fogarty touts his state has recovered from. Further, in my own research I find that there is a significant statistical percentage of job openings that are posted with no committed effort to hire (it can be because “it would be nice to find someone” or as simple as what an appropriate wage for that role is versus what the manufacturer wants to pay).