Monday, February 22, 2010       E-mail This Story

With the realization of the devastating shortfall in pension obligations there is certain to be even greater competing demand for dwindling resources to meet even more pressing education and skills requirements.

The education and skills gap is an immediate concern for employers. We see the problem first hand in sourcing and staffing. Employers today demand skills and capabilities which too often do not exist among those on unemployment. In some cases we need to recruit and screen 25 to 30 candidates to find one candidate who is qualified for referral for specific jobs.

What is the problem? Here are few "lowlights"from "Untapped Human Capital" http://untappedhumancapital.com/2010/02/15/clueless-in-america/  :

• An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds.
• "We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world," said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
• Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life - either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.
• Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal critique of the nation's high schools a few years ago, describing them as "obsolete" and saying, "When I compare our high schools with what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow."

Columnist Bob Herbert said in an article entitled "Clueless in America" said:

"The nation's future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation's infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy)(apparently) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.

An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That's more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life - and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.

Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life - either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.

When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong."

Even more scary if you want a truly mind blowing experience about the future for  jobs and the skills required to fill those jobs see "Shift Happens" on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhuV_rmf5Mg

The facts are simply that many of the jobs which existed before the recession for unskilled, uneducated entry level positions may never come back to previous levels. As "Shift Happens" points out many of the jobs and skills that will be in high demand over the next several years do not even exist today. So what we really need is a workforce capable of learning new skills quickly.

Simply stated we are in a triage scenario. If we had to choose among the critical competing demands the choice would be for better education services than we are getting today. Without people armed with the kind of learning skills to quickly adapt we will never compete among available work forces globally. More jobs will be exported and the unemployment rolls and subsidies will grow even more unsustainable.

Education and learning skills is a bottom line issue which is not getting the sustained and relentless attention it deserves. Recruiting remains hard work even with a high unemployment rate. Employers will be forced to look elsewhere to satisfy growing demand for new skills and learning capability unless we have immediate remedial action. At the moment we seem to be falling behind on the education front.

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