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"Applicants are failing drug tests," she said. "Some apply and then decide they want to wait until their unemployment benefit runs out before taking a factory job." 

 

"I'll have to go through 500 applicants just to get the 10 that I need. And there's no guarantee that those 10 hires will work out.

 

"In May we accepted 129 applications and we screened those down to 40," said Michael. "We administered three industry tests to the 40 and four people passed.  All four were offered a job, and only one accepted, he said.  These statistics are not unusual at all among manufacturers here," he said. To top of page

 

Of course Indiana has a lottery, so they should be cranking out highly qualified people per the highly funded education system (note dripping sarcasm).

 

 

http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/08/smallbusiness/Indiana-manufacturing-jobs/index.htm?iid=HP_LN&hpt=hp_t2

 

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Northeast Indiana has a peculiar problem.

There are hundreds of factory jobs ready for the taking as the area's manufacturing sector has come back to life after the recession.

 

But even with an unemployment rate as highas the national average, companies are struggling to hire workers.

This situation is top of mind for Larry Davis, CEO of Daman Manifolds in Mishawaka. The company, which makes hydraulic valve manifolds, has 115 employees.

 

Industry demand has boosted Daman Manifolds' business significantly. "We need to hire 10 more workers in the next six months," Davis said.

 

His challenge: "I'll have to go through 500 applicants just to get the 10 that I need. And there's no guarantee that those 10 hires will work out.

 

The longer it takes him to hire new workers, the greater the risk Davis could start losing business.

Daman Manifolds is not alone.

 

Northeast Indiana is a hotbed of manufacturing and a microcosm of a problem afflicting many employers in areas where American factories have been revived: There's a widening gulf between open jobs and qualified applicants to fill them.

 

Factories in northeast Indiana primarily support the medical device, aerospace, rail and defense industries, said Kris Deckard, executive director of "Ready Indiana," the workforce development initiative of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

 

The area -- 10 counties covering over 4,000 square miles --has the country's highest concentration of manufacturing jobs, with 26% of the workforce employed in the industry.

 

But manufacturers are having a tough time boosting their workforces, Deckard said.

A labor shortage isn't the problem. Companies are getting hundreds of applicants, she said. But they are either not the right fit or unqualified.

 

"Applicants are failing drug tests," she said. "Some apply and then decide they want to wait until their unemployment benefit runs out before taking a factory job."

Then there are the candidates with four-year college degrees who can't find other work. Manufacturers shy away from hiring them, believing they'll leave as soon as they find a job that's a better fit.

 

At Daman Manifolds, among hundreds of applications the company will review in coming weeks, half will likely get dumped because folks won't fill out the entire eight-page form, Davis said. Another big chunk won't make it past the phone interview.

 

Several more will fail the hands-on assessment because they lack the right skills.

 

"The No. 1 comment I'm hearing right now from manufacturers in northeast Indiana is that 5% to 10% of jobs are going unfilled because of lack of skilled workforce," said Matt Bell, president of Corporate College, a unit of Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, the nation's largest statewide community college system.

 

All 26 Ivy Tech campuses across the state teach certificate courses in manufacturing skills, such as computer-aided manufacturing, welding and tooling.

 

Bell estimates that the state needs about 40,000 to 50,000 manufacturing workers right now to meet the uptick in production.

 

Corporate College graduated about 25,000 students last year from its manufacturing and business courses.

 

Given Indiana's running shortage of skilled factory workers, Bell said manufacturers are importing workers from other states such as Ohio and Michigan.

 

At Fort Wayne Metals Research, business has also picked up. The company has added 200 workers over the past two years.

 

"Our forecast is to add another 100 workers this year, too," said Mark Michael, the company's president and chief operating officer.

 

But the hiring process is long and arduous.

 

"In May we accepted 129 applications and we screened those down to 40," said Michael. "We administered three industry tests to the 40 and four people passed."

 

All four were offered a job, and only one accepted, he said. "These statistics are not unusual at all among manufacturers here," he said. To top of page

LIbEraliSm

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How many of those unqualified were home schooled? How many that failed simple manufacturing tests believe in creationism, or were taught that science isn't "god's" way? How many of those failing drug tests did so, because they smoked a joint two weeks earlier? The dumbing down of America has its consequencies. And then when someone is smart enough to finish four years of college they are disqualified because they might not be willing to keep their nose to the grindstone once the economy does improve. No wonder the youth of this nation is so disillusioned.

"Then there are the candidates with four-year college degrees who can't find other work. Manufacturers shy away from hiring them, believing they'll leave as soon as they find a job that's a better fit."

 

In other words, they want intelligent and skilled employees, but they want to pay them as if they're unskilled laborers, and they don't want them to ever leave for a better job. The problem isn't with the workforce, then; it's that these employers are looking to hire people that don't actually exist. If you need to hire someone skilled and all the applications you get are from idiots with drug records, the problem is that the pay you're offering is too low. And yet, in this economy there actually are educated people who will work for low pay, and these employers still won't hire them. Whose fault is that?

Liberals love to blame others for the failure of their doctrines.  For years liberals have been dictating what our kid's are taught in schools.  Now that the fruits of their efforts are coming to a head, they want to blame Christians for why the country is in a death spiral.

 

Senior is too far off the liberal deep end to realize that a manufacturing plant is a dangerous place to work.  The fact that someone would smoke an illegal drug, regardless of when it was done, is indicative that this person is not trustworthy and is more likely to make mistakes that could get someone killed on the job.

 

Our youth are not disillusioned, liberalism has just made them lazy and ignorant.  Why work when our liberal government will send me a check to play X-box all day?  Liberalism does absolutely nothing to promote personal responsibility.  The liberal holy trinity: me, myself and I.

Not many people with college degrees are going to work a factory job.  You are assuming a higher percentage are applying than reality. 

 

Most of these jobs will require shop experience and some level of skill.  I don't know too many kids out of college who can operate a lathe or milling machine properly.  The kid's who go to trade school or community colleges are the ones being trained for this type of work.  I bet the drug use rate for 4 year college students is as high if not higher than those who would qualify for factory work.

Originally Posted by SeniorCoffee:

How many of those unqualified were home schooled? How many that failed simple manufacturing tests believe in creationism, or were taught that science isn't "god's" way? How many of those failing drug tests did so, because they smoked a joint two weeks earlier? The dumbing down of America has its consequencies. And then when someone is smart enough to finish four years of college they are disqualified because they might not be willing to keep their nose to the grindstone once the economy does improve. No wonder the youth of this nation is so disillusioned.

Senior Coffee,

The dumbing down of our youth is the fault of PUBLIC EDUCATION, not homeschooling.  Did you deride homeschooling because you truly believe that homeschooled kids are not receiving an adequate education, or because its the liberal line?  

 

Repeated studies show the homeschooled score well above those educated in public schools.  

 

“In 1997, a study of 5,402 homeschool students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, "Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America." The study demonstrated that homeschoolers, on the average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects. A significant finding when analyzing the data for 8th graders was the evidence that homeschoolers who are homeschooled two or more years score substantially higher than students who have been homeschooled one year or less. The new homeschoolers were scoring on the average in the 59th percentile compared to students homeschooled the last two or more years who scored between 86th and 92nd percentile. 

 

This was confirmed in another study by Dr. Lawrence Rudner of 20,760 homeschooled students which found the homeschoolers who have homeschooled all their school aged years had the highest academic achievement. This was especially apparent in the higher grades. ii This is a good encouragement to families catch the long-range vision and homeschool through high school.”

http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp

 

So, Coffee, is it ignorance, or demagoguery!  If ignorance, I've given you a path to follow -- go and be enlightened.  Ignorance is curable.  If demagoguery, you should be ashamed, but being a liberal, you have no sense of shame, as long as it furthers your belief system.

 

As to the smoker of the occasional joint, I'm no expert, not having used illegal drugs.  The experts at NORML, say the occasional user will pass a urine test after 1+7 days, so anyone using 2 weeks before testing will pass.  

http://www.canorml.org/healthf...ugtestdetection.html


Older people are supposed to be exemplars of wisdom gained thru experience -- you're coming up short -- real short!

I agree that most people (including myself) who get a college degree do so in order to try to land a career with more earning potential than factory work, and they learn different skills. But it's still basic economics that's relevant here, not some ideological conflict between liberals and conservatives, as you've framed this discussion. If factory work paid better, it would attract more smart people, who are now going to college instead because that route offers a better path toward a comfortable middle-class life. Nowhere does that article mention what kind of pay those factories are offering, even though that's an extremely relevant factor. It can't be very good if the vast majority of applicants are unqualified and three out of the four people they offer a job turn them down. But rather than pay a market wage for the kind of people they're looking for, the factory owners in the article just complain about a lazy and underqualified workforce.

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam:

"Then there are the candidates with four-year college degrees who can't find other work. Manufacturers shy away from hiring them, believing they'll leave as soon as they find a job that's a better fit."

 

In other words, they want intelligent and skilled employees, but they want to pay them as if they're unskilled laborers, and they don't want them to ever leave for a better job. The problem isn't with the workforce, then; it's that these employers are looking to hire people that don't actually exist. If you need to hire someone skilled and all the applications you get are from idiots with drug records, the problem is that the pay you're offering is too low. And yet, in this economy there actually are educated people who will work for low pay, and these employers still won't hire them. Whose fault is that?

 

Your statement truly lacks logic.  I assume you are a product of late 20th century public schooling.  Mr. Hooberbloob provided a sound argument as to skills -- few college educated have shop, or assembly line experience, which punches a large hole in half you statement.  The college educated are probably intelligent (probably, emphasized).  However, most manufacturing companies have experience with training such people, then see them leave when something better comes along. Rather than spend time and money training such people, the companies choose to not hire.  There is an argument that companies should hire and train the college educated with majors such as liberal arts, english, philosophy,and other less marketable majors.  These would be least likely to be readily hired for their original training. 

Team - You've misconstrued the meaning of my OP.  The FACT that these manufacturing jobs can't be filled due to a lack of people who have the basic work ethic, moral depth, and personal responsibility, all without being college educated, is a clear sign of how liberalism has made our young people dumb, lazy, and irresponsibly.  Do you really think America would have had this problem 50 years ago?

50 years ago, far fewer people went to college and manufacturing jobs paid better, so of course you could find responsible and hardworking people to do them. With greater competition from China and elsewhere now in the manufacturing sector, U.S. factories can't afford to pay as well as they used to, so the quality of people they can hire has, quite predictably, gone down. This is just macroeconomic reality, not a sign that people today are stupider and lazier than people 50 years ago. Again, we need to know what wages these factories are offering that are complaining about not be able to find skilled workers. If all they can offer is something around poverty-level wages, then they'll continue to struggle to wind skilled workers, and they would have 50 years ago, too.

You say people aren't dumber or any more lazy and the facts say people would rather wait until their unemployment runs out before accepting a job or they value the high they get from smoking dope over being a productive citizen.  I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong. 

 

BTW - Nothing in the article indicates these are low paying jobs.

"Mr. Hooberbloob provided a sound argument as to skills -- few college educated have shop, or assembly line experience, which punches a large hole in half you statement.  The college educated are probably intelligent (probably, emphasized).  However, most manufacturing companies have experience with training such people, then see them leave when something better comes along."


The article doesn't say that factories don't want to hire college graduates because they don't have the right skills, though. It's true that most of them don't, though it's also true that if they're smart and responsible enough to get a college degree, they're probably smart enough to learn the skills they need and responsible enough to be a good employee. What the article says, and what you say, is that factories don't hire college graduates because they'll leave when something better comes along. That's both true and completely understandable, because most manufacturing jobs are harder and don't pay as well as other jobs that are available to someone with a college degree. If manufacturing jobs would or could pay as well as those other jobs, then factories would be able to hold onto more educated and responsible people, and more smart and responsible teenagers would decide to get shop training rather than go to a four-year college. But they don't or can't pay that well, so they're left with the people who will work for what they're offering. It's basic market economics.

"BTW - Nothing in the article indicates these are low paying jobs."

 

Besides the fact that they can't find qualified people to fill them? If you have a skilled position to fill and no one with the skills you're looking for is applying, then obviously the wage you're offering is below the market rate for people with those skills. 

Originally Posted by interventor1212:

"The average salary for manufacturing jobs is $50,000.  Average manufacturing salaries can vary greatly due to company, location, industry, experience and benefits."

 

 

http://www.simplyhired.com/a/s...arch/q-Manufacturing

 

Not a great salary, but not starvation wages, either.  Your assumption of low pay does not meet any parameters for arguments presented.

Did you actually look at the chart? That $50,000 average comes from all kinds of manufacturing-related jobs that require college degrees: engineers, sales managers, accountants, etc. The article clearly wasn't talking about those jobs, because it mentioned factory owners not wanting to hire people with college degrees. The average salary for a machine operator according to that list? $20,000, or below the poverty level for a family of four (if that's their only source of income).

 

I repeat my simple but apparently controversial point: if you aren't getting the quality of applicants you want for a position, you're clearly offering below the market rate for the kind of people you're looking for. If you can't offer a competitive wage for skilled, responsible people due to the economic realities of your industry (competition from China, etc.), then you're stuck with the kind of people who will work for what you can afford to pay.

I took it a step further and looked at the Daman Manifolds website and the job they are offering is for the Production team. If you put the state (Indiana) into the simplyhired.com search engine and look at production jobs you will find that the average salary is $16,000.

 

So if they want better workers and they expect to fill these jobs they are going to have to at least pay a living wage. If the demand is high for his manifolds then that means Daman Manifolds is doing well. They should be willing to pay a decent wage to their employees if they are doing well themselves.

 

The 50,000 was an average salary for a Manufacturing eng. That takes a college education to obtain, and Daman's CEO said they are not interested in college educated employees.

 

 

 

 

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam:
Originally Posted by interventor1212:

"The average salary for manufacturing jobs is $50,000.  Average manufacturing salaries can vary greatly due to company, location, industry, experience and benefits."

 

 

http://www.simplyhired.com/a/s...arch/q-Manufacturing

 

Not a great salary, but not starvation wages, either.  Your assumption of low pay does not meet any parameters for arguments presented.

Did you actually look at the chart? That $50,000 average comes from all kinds of manufacturing-related jobs that require college degrees: engineers, sales managers, accountants, etc. The article clearly wasn't talking about those jobs, because it mentioned factory owners not wanting to hire people with college degrees. The average salary for a machine operator according to that list? $20,000, or below the poverty level for a family of four (if that's their only source of income).

 

I repeat my simple but apparently controversial point: if you aren't getting the quality of applicants you want for a position, you're clearly offering below the market rate for the kind of people you're looking for. If you can't offer a competitive wage for skilled, responsible people due to the economic realities of your industry (competition from China, etc.), then you're stuck with the kind of people who will work for what you can afford to pay.

China was the source of low cost unskilled manufacturing jobs, many of which are not in Viet Nam and India.  China has the same problem, if not worse, concerning skilled workers.  This problem surfaced over two years ago.

"Although China is the world's largest manufacturing base, it faces a shortage of skilled workers.

Numbers from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security show that, among the country's 270 million urban employees, only 1/3 have some kind of professional certification. And only one fifth of those skilled workers are senior technicians or have high technical abilities.

The lack of highly skilled workers has become a bottleneck hindering industrial upgrading and threatening the competitiveness of "made in China" products."

http://english.cntv.cn/program...0120611/104025.shtml

 

That's OK, there are about 2 Billion Chinese and Indian workers who will work for what is being offered.  What people fail to understand is that in a world economy you can no longer demand hgiher wages and expect the company to be able to produce a product that is competitive in the market.

This is just another example of how things are not like they were 40 years ago when you could demand hgiher wages and the company would be over a barrell to delivery them. That is not the case today.

But clearly people smart and hardworking people can get better wages elsewhere, which is why factories are left with a poorer-quality applicant pool of people who will work for less. If those factories would or could pay a wage that would attract smarter people, then they'd get them. Since they don't or can't, it's no surprise that they can't get the same quality of people that used to work in manufacturing. 

Well we are all living in FDR's great society where you can make as much sitting on your ass as you can working a job and still have a cell phone, cable t.v., a.c., apartment, and car.  Heck if I didn't have people to support I might just consider sucking at the tit of the taxpayer.  A couple of years of unemployment, 100 grand to go back to school.  That would buy me about 5 years of doing jack squat.

The deplorable condition of public education is a direct result of liberal ideas and catering to a union that only considers its leadership -- the NEA.  Despite increasing spending second only to Switzerland per student, nearly doubling the number of public education employees over the last 30 years, while increasing the number of students by about 9 percent, and significantly decreasing student classroom size, conditions have deteriorated, not improved. 

Originally Posted by interventor1212:

The deplorable condition of public education is a direct result of liberal ideas and catering to a union that only considers its leadership -- the NEA.  Despite increasing spending second only to Switzerland per student, nearly doubling the number of public education employees over the last 30 years, while increasing the number of students by about 9 percent, and significantly decreasing student classroom size, conditions have deteriorated, not improved. 

______________________________

So you're saying that if these factory owners had a better education they might know enough to offer a living wage?

 

And now we're just on to standard conservative talking points (welfare bad, unions bad, public education bad) rather than the real issue at hand, which is that basic factory jobs aren't very good, and the kind of smart and hardworking people that factories want to hire can make more money in other sectors of the economy. Are the people who work for the lowest wages today dumber and lazier than the people worked for the lowest wages in the past? That seems to be a lot of people's opinion, but I don't see any evidence in that article to back it up. Instead, I see factory owners who can't afford to hire skilled workers anymore and blaming this not on the larger economic factors at play, but on the unskilled workers they're forced to hire now instead.

Originally Posted by O No!:

I find it laughable that you blame ANY of this on liberals. There is a nationwide drought going on right now. I suppose your twisted minds could find a way to blame that on liberals too. Caught a cold? It must be the fault of those *@&% liberals!

 

You guys are pitiful!

 

 No, we leave it to you morons to blame the weather (heat) on the right.

 

There were more jobs than just manifold manufacturing.  Also listed were aerospace, medical, and defense.  Starting out at $8/hour doesn't mean you have to stay at that rate, which is most likely the probationary rate.  The other industries listed may pay more.  I would rather make $8/hour and work than sit at home and live off the tax payer at $8/hour.  But I'm not a lib, so I don't expect you guys to understand.

Now I'm thinking you didn't even read the article you posted. There are hundreds of people who want to work in these jobs. The factories just want more skilled people than the ones that who are applying, but clearly they're offering below the market price for such people since they're having such a hard time getting them.

Originally Posted by O No!:
Originally Posted by interventor1212:

The deplorable condition of public education is a direct result of liberal ideas and catering to a union that only considers its leadership -- the NEA.  Despite increasing spending second only to Switzerland per student, nearly doubling the number of public education employees over the last 30 years, while increasing the number of students by about 9 percent, and significantly decreasing student classroom size, conditions have deteriorated, not improved. 

______________________________

So you're saying that if these factory owners had a better education they might know enough to offer a living wage?

 I thought you were old enough to have attended public school when kids actually learned how to process information in a logical way.  Guess it didn't take for some.  You post would make Mr. Spock raise an eyebrow. 

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam:

Now I'm thinking you didn't even read the article you posted. There are hundreds of people who want to work in these jobs. The factories just want more skilled people than the ones that who are applying, but clearly they're offering below the market price for such people since they're having such a hard time getting them.

How can a factory stay in business and offer less than market value for jobs if there are no takers?  More illogical thinking from liberals.  Is there any other type?  

Originally Posted by interventor1212:
Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam:

Now I'm thinking you didn't even read the article you posted. There are hundreds of people who want to work in these jobs. The factories just want more skilled people than the ones that who are applying, but clearly they're offering below the market price for such people since they're having such a hard time getting them.

How can a factory stay in business and offer less than market value for jobs if there are no takers?  More illogical thinking from liberals.  Is there any other type?  

Okay, now I know I'm just getting trolled. How could anyone not understand what I wrote above? The article says that there are hundreds of people who want these jobs, but the factories reject most of them because they don't meet their requirements. So where are the people who do meet their requirements? The problem is not that they don't exist. There are plenty of smart, hardworking, and responsible people out there who could either obtain the training on their own or be trained by the company and become good employees for these factories, but they're not applying. Why? Because they can make more money in other jobs. For these factories to get the quality of employees they want, they have to be able to offer them enough that they won't choose other professions instead. If they can't afford to do that, then they're stuck with the quality of employees who will work for what they're offering, or with unfilled positions.

 

I'll put it this way. If I owned a hospital, it would be really great for me if I could find good doctors who would work for $40,000/year. If I posted that as a job opening, however, I of course wouldn't get any doctors applying for positions at my hospital. By the logic of some people in this topic, my problem is apparently that doctors are lazy and don't want to work. But obviously what's really going on is that I'm offering too little salary and doctors know they can make more money elsewhere. And that's exactly what's going on with these factory jobs. They want skilled workers, but they either won't or can't pay enough money to attract them.

While I certainly believe in strong public schools, the issue of schooling is a red herring to what's being described in the article. By any measure, the overall workforce is smarter and better educated today than it was 50 years ago when the U.S. manufacturing sector was stronger. To manufacturers, it may look like the problem they have in filling their skilled positions is that the workforce has gotten dumber, but what has really happened is that the pay they're able to offer has declined relative to other professions, so they're drawing from a lower talent pool than they used to.

 

If you're a business owner in this situation, your options (if you want to keep growing your business) are a) offer better pay to attract more talented people, b) figure out how to get more productivity out of the workers you have, c) accept that at the wage you're offering, the workers available aren't as talented or reliable as you'd like, and figure out how to deal with that, or in this case, even d) take advantage of the recession and hire overqualified people, getting as much good work out of them as you can before they inevitably leave for a better job. These business owners chose option e) whine to a CNN reporter.

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam:
Originally Posted by interventor1212:
Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam:

Now I'm thinking you didn't even read the article you posted. There are hundreds of people who want to work in these jobs. The factories just want more skilled people than the ones that who are applying, but clearly they're offering below the market price for such people since they're having such a hard time getting them.

How can a factory stay in business and offer less than market value for jobs if there are no takers?  More illogical thinking from liberals.  Is there any other type?  

Okay, now I know I'm just getting trolled. How could anyone not understand what I wrote above? The article says that there are hundreds of people who want these jobs, but the factories reject most of them because they don't meet their requirements. So where are the people who do meet their requirements? The problem is not that they don't exist. There are plenty of smart, hardworking, and responsible people out there who could either obtain the training on their own or be trained by the company and become good employees for these factories, but they're not applying. Why? Because they can make more money in other jobs. For these factories to get the quality of employees they want, they have to be able to offer them enough that they won't choose other professions instead. If they can't afford to do that, then they're stuck with the quality of employees who will work for what they're offering, or with unfilled positions.

 

I'll put it this way. If I owned a hospital, it would be really great for me if I could find good doctors who would work for $40,000/year. If I posted that as a job opening, however, I of course wouldn't get any doctors applying for positions at my hospital. By the logic of some people in this topic, my problem is apparently that doctors are lazy and don't want to work. But obviously what's really going on is that I'm offering too little salary and doctors know they can make more money elsewhere. And that's exactly what's going on with these factory jobs. They want skilled workers, but they either won't or can't pay enough money to attract them.

Didn't you read the article?  And, if so, didn't you understand it?  None of the reasons concerned pay, or lack of sufficient pay.  You drew that conclusion from whole cloth, with nothing to base t on, except your supposition.

 

From the original article:

“Applicants are failing drug tests," she said. "Some apply and then decide they want to wait until their unemployment benefit runs out before taking a factory job."

Then there are the candidates with four-year college degrees who can't find other work. Manufacturers shy away from hiring them, believing they'll leave as soon as they find a job that's a better fit.

 

At Daman Manifolds, among hundreds of applications the company will review in coming weeks, half will likely get dumped because folks won't fill out the entire eight-page form, Davis said. Another big chunk won't make it past the phone interview.

 

Several more will fail the hands-on assessment because they lack the right skills.

 

"The No. 1 comment I'm hearing right now from manufacturers in northeast Indiana is that 5% to 10% of jobs are going unfilled because of lack of skilled”

 

Boiled down, the reasons are:

  1. Failed drug test.
  2. Apply, then drop out until unemployment benefits run out.
  3. Not accepting college graduates because they have a history of leaving.
  4. Applicants won’t complete applications.
  5. Applicants don’t have the required skills.

Of the five listed reasons, only rejection of those with a 4-year degree was at the discretion of the hiring company. 


Your hospital example proves my point.  If a hospital were run in such a fashion, it would close its doors, as would a factory, as there would be no doctors available.  

 

Originally Posted by SeniorCoffee:

The downward spiral in public schools can be directly attributed to the Texas School Book Committee which determines exactly what is contained in this nations school books. That committee is filled with religious wingnuts that require their simple minded nuttiness be taught.

Senior,

 

Now, you're just quoting from the liberal play book list of excuses.  The books the committee selects that go nationwide are mainly social studies and history.  How does that affect basic ablity to read and write, math, science, physics, chemistry and all the other subjects students were found deficient.  Where did public schooling fail you!  People your age, attended the public schools when they were still superior. 

Didn't you read the article?  And, if so, didn't you understand it?  None of the reasons concerned pay, or lack of sufficient pay.  You drew that conclusion from whole cloth, with nothing to base t on, except your supposition.

 

I drew that conclusion based on an understanding of basic economics. Surely we agree that there are people out there who are either skilled enough or smart enough that they could learn the necessary skills to do these jobs, yes? The problem for the factories is not that smart and skilled people don't exist; it's that these people aren't applying for their jobs. Why do you think that is?

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam:

Didn't you read the article?  And, if so, didn't you understand it?  None of the reasons concerned pay, or lack of sufficient pay.  You drew that conclusion from whole cloth, with nothing to base t on, except your supposition.

 

I drew that conclusion based on an understanding of basic economics. Surely we agree that there are people out there who are either skilled enough or smart enough that they could learn the necessary skills to do these jobs, yes? The problem for the factories is not that smart and skilled people don't exist; it's that these people aren't applying for their jobs. Why do you think that is?

You ignored the facts stated in the article to draw a conclusion not supported by the article.  As factories and shops are in business, at all, they must be paying enough to attract the appropriate employees.   The article stated why companies rejected some employees.  

 

You carefully did not comment on my last statement, which showed the consequence of you proposed reason -- Your hospital example proves my point.  If a hospital were run in such a fashion, it would close its doors, as would a factory, as there would be no doctors available. 

Originally Posted by Jankinonya:

You are asking them to think this through to the logical conclusion instead of clinging to conservative talk radio hyperbole.

 

I don't see it happening.

Although retired, I'm too busy to listen to talk radio.  Liberals appear to be one of their major listeners from comments made.  When driving, I prefer the Bluesville, Jazz, or symphony stations on XM-Sirius. 

Originally Posted by Jankinonya:

You are asking them to think this through to the logical conclusion instead of clinging to conservative talk radio hyperbole.

I really don't want to make this a liberal vs. conservative thing, because I'm not making a liberal argument here, and the argument others are making doesn't really have anything to do with conservatism. All I'm talking about is how the market works when it comes to skilled labor, and the counter-argument is mostly just doom-and-gloom, kids these days are lazy and stupid, etc.

 

You ignored the facts stated in the article to draw a conclusion not supported by the article.  As factories and shops are in business, at all, they must be paying enough to attract the appropriate employees.   The article stated why companies rejected some employees.  

 

They rejected almost every single applicant because they weren't appropriate for one reason or another. They're paying enough to attract a very small number qualified applicants (and hold onto the employees that they have), but they'd like more. In order to get them, they can just keep wishing that more of their applicants were more skilled, or they can offer more money to actually attract some more skilled applicants. This is how the economy works, and it's absolutely a conclusion that is supported by the facts stated in the article.


You carefully did not comment on my last statement, which showed the consequence of you proposed reason -- Your hospital example proves my point.  If a hospital were run in such a fashion, it would close its doors, as would a factory, as there would be no doctors available.

 

My hospital example was just an extreme example to make my point; it doesn't prove your point at all. Obviously a hospital that paid doctors so little couldn't keep its doors open. To make it more analogous to our factory scenario, we'd have to imagine a hospital where doctors were paid something closer to what doctors usually make, but still less than what most people with skills as a doctor could earn elsewhere. The hospital could keep its doors open, but they wouldn't be too happy with the quality of doctors that apply to work there, because the good ones would all apply to other hospitals and our example hospital would be left with doctors who graduated in the bottom of their class or otherwise weren't skilled enough to get one of the better jobs out there. That's clearly what's happening for these factories, just replacing medical school with high school. Their applicant pool is scraping the bottom of the barrel rather than the pool of more talented people that they'd prefer, and the obvious explanation for that is that they're not offering enough money to attract those more talented people away from other professions.

Nowhere in the article can you draw such a conclusion.  A hospital with such a record would receive such bad reviews from government and private activities patients would flee.  Malpractice suits would deliver the coup de grace.

 

Same for poor shops and factories, the landscape of the northeast is littered with the ruins of such. Tour Detroit and Flint, Michigan sometimes for more examples.  

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