Educators, employers lament ‘skills gap’ hampering R.I. job-seekers

[hack89]

Source: Providence Journal

WARWICK — Since 2000, Lifespan has expanded its work force by 40 percent to more than 12,000 employees. And, even as the recession drags on, the Providence-based hospital group, the largest employer in the state, is continuing to add jobs.

Lifespan currently has 450 openings, said Brandon Melton, senior vice president of human resources at the company. But of that number, only nine do not require some sort of higher degree or post-secondary training. Lifespan has received tens of thousands of applications but is still struggling to find qualified workers. “We have difficulty filling these positions with the kind of talented people that we look for here,” Melton said.

By 2019, 31 percent of the jobs in New England will require advanced training, while only 27 percent of the work force will be qualified to fill them, according to projections cited by Alicia Sasser Modestino, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s New England Public Policy Center.

“If firms can’t find workers with the right mix of skills, then it’s hard to grow the economy,” she said. “If they can’t find those workers here, then they are likely to move out of state.”

Read more: http://www.projo.com/news/content/SKILLS_GAP_YOUNG_06-14-11_78OKL36_v20.352c0.html

---

This is the real problem with the education system - it has not changed as the economy changed.

[yourout]

1. I would be interested in knowing how "Highly paid" these highly skilled jobs are.

[hack89]

4. Medical technicians earn from $30k to $60k

depending on the field. The jobs usually have health and retirement benefits.

http://www.techniciansalaries.com/profession/

[pstokely]

35. cheap when you have H-1Bs

ng

[kath]

38. Yep - these days they want you to have a college degree to be a secretary and make barely above

minimum wage.

[leftistboy]

2. the solution is more MORE immigration and more student loan DEBT!

which is always the solution suggested by the Dems, the GOP, the mass media, US Chamber of Commerce and the higher education industry.

Bring in more immigrants and have americans go back to school on student loans!

Problem solved!


Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

[Doctor Hurt]

5. We should make all jobs simpler!

I propose a ban on any job that involves using a computer as anything more complex than a typewriter.

[leftistboy]

14. non sequitir?

nothing to do with my post

[locahungaria]

3. Funny.....

That the other side of that same coin says that if potential (future) college students don't see any quality jobs out in the current market to match their skills or salary expectations, it's pretty hard to justify the time and $30,000+ expense of student loans to continue any higher education.

[hack89]

6. A lot of these jobs don't require college degrees

From the article

The problem is especially dire when it comes to so called “middle-skill” jobs that don’t require a college degree, but do require some sort of post-secondary education, whether it be through a certificate program, an apprenticeship or coursework that leads to an associate’s degree.

The recession has exacerbated the problem, with more and more jobs now requiring post-secondary training. They include jobs as teaching assistants or medical technicians, and positions in technical and computer support.

[locahungaria]

18. An associates degree is a form of a college degree....

and perhaps I should have specified "post-secondary education" in my original response, but again, many folks are having a hard time justifying time/money spent when they see little available in today's job market to match their skills/salary expectations. After all, those student loans will follow one around for a lifetime. And there are plenty of predatory practices involved in the current "post-secondary education" craze.

It's truly a consumer BEWARE situation out there.

[Igel]

32. This is hardly a new problem.

Back in 2005 and 2006 the numbers were saying that we had too many 4-year degrees and not enough certificate and AA recipients. The shortfall was rather large.

We had far too many people with just high school degrees who couldn't find work, and nearly as many excess high school dropouts.

The training for an AA doesn't take $30k. Far less. And even less than that, with grants.

A lot of those who start never finish, or they don't move, or can't or won't take the jobs available, or were trained in the wrong field. (This also accounts for a lot of the excess 4-year degrees. For instance, we have far more history majors than the economy needs so they get hired outside their field.)

A fair number of the least qualified wind up at private schools and never graduate. This is considered "predatory." To be fair, if you look at the public/state schools with similar demographics you get the same fail rate; this is considered "public service", not so much because they do much better with graduation but because they leave the students with a smaller debt load. It's just that the private schools disproportionately serve the lesser qualified applicants.

[locahungaria]

33. Like I said....

Consumer beware, be very aware!

This ain't your grandparents America.

[InkAddict]

34. I have that community college degree cum laude;

I also had a "professional" credential at one time (ART); certifications are a professional racket to exclude not include. It's all about the $$. I obtained my degree at my own expense, no debt. Imagine my surprise to find that welfare persons could obtain the same knowledge free from the state and that employers were rewarded with cash and tax incentives to hire them, even without the credentialing, instead of me (certainly not a level playing field). I wasn't on welfare by virtue of my spouse's off and on again IT employment at the time. When he became unemployed, it was difficult to rationalize a hefty annual fee and other costs of CMEs to maintain the certification when there were no local jobs in that field available that weren't being taken by Welfare to Work applicants.

My education in HIM was at a higher level than that for, say, a transcriptionist. I am also a fast, accurate typist with a firm grasp of medical terminology by virtue of my previous education, but I can't be certified in transcription without yet another specialized program tuition and national testing. While I've transcribed for three speciality practices over the past 20 years, my lack of acute hospital transcription makes me ineligible for hire by most remote large services that prefer the remote low-wage Indian ESL workers who aren't credentialed by the American professional organization either.

At the time of my graduation, there was no follow-on bachelor's program in the state for HIM. Moving to accommodate my desire for continuing education wasn't even a consideration at that time. Moving to accommodate my IT spouse's employment opportunities was very much on the table, LOL, go figure. I was thrilled when Carlson Marketing indicated a willingness to move its employees to MN where a program existed, so we signed up to go; at last, I could finish my education...WHOA, the company took ONLY their highest level employees and the spouse was once again unemployed.

By this time, he's exhausted IT employers in our city, so hoping my spouse would find work we moved within the state yet again. That's been an exercise in frustration. He's been off for 2+ years; lack of advanced education may be his problem too and that's another story. In either case, the shock doctrine factors have worked as a perfect storm of destruction in our lives.

I took what was available; a PT/no benefits job. It lasted four years. I was laid off in April ostensibly because the practice was going another direction (outsourced the work to workers in another state, LOL - should I feel relief the work wasn't going to foreigners?) and MA's (yet another more clinical patient-oriented nursing certification)to fax, print, and fold a few DICTATED BUT NOT REVIEWED physician records that could not be autofaxed out the door for other reasons and in anticipation of the EMR system to come as soon as the government check comes through, LOL. Prevent medical errors? Yeah, that should prove more accurate.

I so resent being told I'm lazy and unskilled by this and previous administration(s), and that I should have looked in a crystal ball and known better. Experience should make one more valuable, but it doesn't take a brain surgeon to understand the inequities and obstacles in obtaining competitive American employment these days.

[madrchsod]

7. brandon is lying.....he forgot that the job openings are posted online

https://lifespan.taleo.net/careersection/1/jobsearch.ftl?lang=en

it`s 379 most of these jobs require at least a certification from a community college up to a doctor`s degree.

[hack89]

9. You just agreed with the OP

the entire point was that the jobs require post-high school education and there are not enough qualified people to fill them.

[sulphurdunn]

8. Can you say H1-B

According to traditional economic theory a labor shortage drives up wages. In a nation of 320 million one would think it shouldn't be too difficult to find 450 qualified job applicants out of tens of thousands in the nation with the most advanced higher education system in the world.

[hack89]

10. Depends how mobile the workers are

How many people are willing to up-root and move to Rhode Island? It's even harder now because people can't sell their houses.

[sulphurdunn]

12. Depends on the wage scale.

If you really need people you'll pay them what you have to pay to get them, even if that means buying their devalued homes so they can move. Not only does America have the most advanced higher education system in the world, but it also has the most highways.

[locahungaria]

22. Excellent point, sulphurdunn!

Seems like that scenario was the case back in the early 90's; my brother was laid off in Denver, CO and was recruited by a company in Chattanooga, TN in that era....the final package included paying the remainder of my brothers lease and moving expenses totaling around $2500 if I remember correctly.

[OHdem10]

11. These articles make me wonder. Last night, on a Business Program

someone was being sarcastic but truth about Obama and
his nudging around the margins. They asked. Obama wants
to move on educating so many engineers over the next
10 years. They said we have thousands of laid off or
unemployed Engineeers right now.

[sulphurdunn]

15. The American

business model is predicted on low taxes, deregulation and cheap labor. Eventually, Wall Street wants to bring those outsourced jobs back home and hire those unemployed engineers because the US has the most productive and highly skilled work force in the world. American workers just don't work cheap enough yet. That's the only problem. Flooding the labor market with lots more indebted and unemployed professionals will help solve it.

[OHdem10]

17. So glad you explained this. I have been thinking very similar

thoughts. All the Union Busting equals Lower Wages.
The Republicans seem to be on a mission to get salaries
low. It is happening in such an organized manner.

Competitiveness means lower American Pay Scale further
to entice Businesses back home. No Labor Laws means
lower wages, beneifits and job protection.

And the Republicans just make takeover next election.

[wordpix]

21. I just met an African engineer with green card working for RCN. Said he couldn't find an engineer's

job

[Gman]

13. So let's defund education even more

can't have no middle class here.

[Hestia]

20. That's what I have been thinking too Gman - we get these lovely speeches about how everything is for

the children, better education, yada yada yada, then the very first thing local communities cut is education dollars "because we can't afford it". I feel so sorry for today's youth, being jerked around like this. All we had to do is sit there and learn and read. Now we are told that we learned it all wrong, that we should not have sat there and learned how to read, write and cipher. Funny though, very very few never learned to read. Now that seems to be the norm.

[izquierdista]

16. Cheapskates

Used to be, you were given a job on being a reliable person and a dedicated worker. That meant learning on the job and improving your skill set, with the company chipping in for classes or training needed. Now, "firms can't find workers with the right mix of skills", because they don't want to pay to develop that set of skills, they want applicants lined up waiting for a job for which they make no promises, just that it will pay as low as the market can bear.

[plumbob]

19. We have a winner! Companies are shifting the burden of training employees

to the public sector. I've been working for wages for 43 years, and I never had a job, from pearl-diving in the late 60s to roughnecking in the 70s to banking in the early 80s to construction to teaching, that did not involve on-the-job training.

Now, the weird part is, when I was in high school a jillion years ago, some students took academic courses to go to college, while others earned real work certifications in auto repair, auto body and paint, locksmithing, cabinetmaking, printing, photography and darkroom techniques, cosmetology (right down to the state exam in Austin), welding, including vessel welding, plumbing, electrical construction, concrete forming and finishing, and more.

The some dumb fuck named Ross Perot convinced the state of Texas that ALL kids need to go to COLLEGE, that we don't need mechanics, auto body shops, barbers, locksmiths, woodworkers, printers, photographers, welders, plumbers, electricians, or any other "hands" jobs. So in 1984, we killed all those programs, which involved just about 70% of the students in our high school, and put EVERYONE on an academic track.

The rest is history, and it has worked SO WELL that if you can find a competent tradesperson, you had better keep them close. Meanwhile, business, which couldn't plan its way out of a paper sack, and has no incentive to, because it's not their money, keeps changing their mind on what they want in these college plans, until you finally end up with a large pool of talented and educated workers desperate to work for any amount of money, no matter how small.

That's success by any measure for business. The dumbasses were so ill-educated in humanities that they forgot that when people earn no money, you lose your markets and hence, profits. Extending it overseas only gives you more time, not a solution.

These top down measures will never work. People must be able to choose fields of work and receive training in those fields, just like they used to. It worked.

[locahungaria]

23. +100!

[wordpix]

24. +10000 BINGO. After teaching students tagged LD/ADD for over 20 yrs.,

it's clear to me many of them should not be going to college for your stated reasons. They should have had vo-ed courses in high school, where they could have found satisfaction and job opportunities in working with their hands in some occupation where they will be paid well. They would make much more money as good plumbers, handymen/women and computer and auto repair people than as unemployed people or MacDonald's workers who cannot read, write or do math well.

[plumbob]

26. Our own grandson dropped out of high school, discouraged beyond belief.

A high school friend of mine, who is a plumber and got his apprentice card in the high school program I was talking about, put our grandson on as an apprentice. He loved the work!

Now, several years down the road, he has just passed his Master's test in Austin and can work under his own license. Regular hours are $45 per hour, callouts after hours, weekends or holidays are $90 per hour, 4 hour minimum. Their whole little family of three is going to Orlando for the full treatment this summer, their house is paid for, and they're happy with only one person having to work for wages while the other can be a full time parent.

Is that OK?


He was tagged as a section 504 student in junior high school, and he finally dropped out his junior year in high school. He still can't tell you what meter Shakespeare wrote in, but I really don't think it's important, only for me, because I teach English, among other subjects.

We have got to actually start matching people with interests and skills again, instead of this cookie cutter approach.

Thanks for your post!

[NCarolinawoman]

37. That is a really nice story!

:thumbsup: :-)

[LimitedHangout]

25. BA Degree

Bachelor Degree is now considered a High School diploma

[slampoet]

27. Too bad jobs in RI pay less than any other NE state and also rents are higher and the

labor board is useless.

Maybe if RI started treating it's workers well then they'd come back.


I know a diamond cutter who started working for W.R. Cobb in RI.


He left after he figured out that the company hadn't given a paid sick day to anyone since being established around 1840 and that every single disease that came to the area swept through like gangbusters.

The place still doesn have to pay for sick leave and gets away with it even for 6 figure jobs, BECAUSE THEY ARE LOCATED IN RHODE ISLAND the most corrupt state in the USA.

[hack89]

30. That's not true for high tech jobs

on a Aquidneck Island for example, there is a concentration of high tech companies supporting the Navy lab in Newport that pay as well as any company in the country.

You are right about manufacturing jobs - they are quickly disappearing because RI is so hostile to business and it is easier and cheaper for companies to set up in Massachusetts.

[slampoet]

36. They pay only as well as comparable govt contractor jobs. Compare high tech ouside govt contracts.

In the audio tech field the pay is almost half of what high tech workers make around the Boston hub.

[slampoet]

28. BTW If the problem is with education in RI then how many DAMN colleges more do they need?

The area already has one of the highest concentrations of colleges in the entire USA.

Frankly your answer is not informed by the facts as they pertain to RI, just as they might pertain to somewhere else.

[hack89]

29. The number of colleges is not the issue

our educational system in the urban areas is so poor that many students, if they don't drop out first, would never be accepted to a four year college.

The bigger issue is that there are no good jobs for people with little education. All the high tech jobs that don't require a four year college degree still require post-high school certification or a two year degree. Those are the jobs that are hard to fill.

We have a two tiered education system in Rhode Island. The wealthier suburbs have good schools and send their kids to college while the urban schools are horrendous and fail to provide an adequate basic education. We have to fix those urban schools if we are to avoid pervasive long term unemployment.

[gratuitous]

31. Gee, we've short-changed education for decades

We've handed companies millions in tax breaks, abatements, and literally paved the streets for them, without charging them a dime. And now, after handing them the keys to the treasury, they have nothing else to do but complain about the quality of the applicants. Pay some taxes, improve the schools, hire more teachers and create smaller class sizes, and you'll be quite surprised by the quality of applicants you'll get.

The problem is, it's going to take about the same time frame (30 years or so) that you spent dismantling the public education system to put it right again. So, your shareholders are going to be pissed that they can't get fat dividend checks for a while. But as things stand now, they may not get anything in another 10 years with the way things are going.

Make the call, O captains of industry.