Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

[touchring]

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e74e5...44feab49a.html

Siemens chief warns on US skills shortage

By Ed Crooks in New York

Published: June 19 2011 21:22 | Last updated: June 19 2011 21:22

A mismatch in the US labour market between the skills of unemployed people and the jobs available is making it hard for some companies to find the right staff despite an unemployment rate of more than 9 per cent, one of the country’s largest manufacturing employers has warned.

Eric Spiegel, chief executive in the US for Siemens, the German engineering group, said the problem exposed weaknesses in education and training in the US. Siemens had been forced to use more than 30 recruiters and hire staff from other companies to find the workers it needed for its expansion plans, even amid an unemployment rate of 9.1 per cent.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

I smell a rat. Some semblence of this story has been picked up by everyone after appearing in the WSJ. It reminds me of Moody's threatening to downgrade US debt. I know recent college grads (math /computer majors) with excellent GPA's who are having to settle for work far outside their fields.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

They built a gas turbine plant in Charlotte, NC and their having to retrain textile workers to work in it. Maybe they could have seen that coming and built near Detroit?

[touchring]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

I know recent college grads (math /computer majors) with excellent GPA's who are having to settle for work far outside their fields.

Computer jobs are outsourced nowadays.

[pianodoctor]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

Having met several older unemployed engineers the past couple of years, I suspect what is really being said here is that they are having a hard time finding engineers who are kids who will work a lot of extra hours, for low pay, and be decades away from claiming retirement benefits.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

Having met several older unemployed engineers the past couple of years, I suspect what is really being said here is that they are having a hard time finding engineers who are kids who will work a lot of extra hours, for low pay, and be decades away from claiming retirement benefits.

+1.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

Yep. You hit the nail on the head. It is more rhetoric of failure from the management class. I would like to hear him say what he CAN use.

[flintlock]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

Sounds like he's talking about technical jobs requiring something short of an Engineering degree. While I can agree this type training is lacking in the US, what person wants to invest in this type training when those jobs are said to be flying out of the US, not in? This sounds like they are encouraging the government pay to train their work force for them. Companies used to make serious investments in training. With increasing specialization, how realistic is it for schools to exist that can train for these specific skills? I remember when people used to spend a fortune putting themselves through technical schools, only to find out they paid poorly, if you could land a job at all. Its understandable why people would be reluctant to go that route.

And I agree, they want the skilled worker, but probably are not willing to pay for them. Hard to say without more details.

That said, High Schools could do a better job teaching basic technical skills for company training to build upon. Most people aren't learning these skills on the farm or in the family garage like they used to. And an Engineering degree is probably overkill for production work.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

Dan Rather did a very nice piece on this subject last week.

“Dan Rather Reports” presents painful and poignant profiles of Americans who thought they’d done everything right, only to find that the corporate culture that once protected its workers now dismisses them…literally. Many American tech workers told us that even after seeing so many American jobs moved overseas, they had never imagined that they’d be displaced by foreign workers in their own hometowns.

http://www.hd.net/blogs/2011/06/comi...-june-14-2011/

[aaron]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

It is absolutely about the money. I suspect if they were paying German wages (or half German wages even), they would not have any trouble filling these low-mid level tech jobs.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

One can place the blame for this squarely with the U.S. public school curriculum. The curriculum is fixated on so-called, "basic skills". And what are those skills? Reading, writing, arithmetic, number-cyphering drills, cursive, timed-testing skills, English-only, nationalism, U.S. history, memorization of lists of vocabulary, a focus on specifics and meaningless details rather than important and governing concepts, flag worship, meaningless stories and story-telling, clerical skills, U.S. government, physical education, art, and convergent-thinking.

And what are the important skills omitted in the U.S. public education curriculum? Divergent-thinking, critical thinking, reasoning, questioning, computer literacy, engineering and mechanical skills, a conceptual understanding in the sciences, understanding, construction skills, medical skills, machining, welding, plumbing, drilling, repair skills, basic wiring skills, basic internet use, driving skills, linguistics, entrepreneurship, basic economics, basic law in marriage, basic law in business, basic law in estates, basic law in real estate, and leadership and management skills. Even teaching a basic and rudimentary knowledge of how everything works is omitted from the education curriculum. Spanish for fluency is omitted. Foreign languages are omitted. A primitive and basic knowledge of world history is omitted. A primitive knowledge of the history of the universe is omitted.......

So how can graduates find employment?

[aaron]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

My kids' schools teach computer skills, reasoning, etc.

The schools down the road a dozen miles? I was listening to a show on public radio this morning. 70% of the kids get free lunches. There is a waiting list for a grocery program. They probably cannot pass the no-child-left-behind tests.


That is the problem with averages and generalizations. They do not give you a clear picture. We often average the Haves and Have-Nots to get a baseline that does not exist in reality. I suspect reality is more like, or will continue to trend towards:

Good Schools = 10%
OK Schools = 30%
Bad schools = 60%

Your school is determined by where you live. Since few people can sell their homes now, or get a better job to afford the better school districts, I see the problem getting worse.

[pianodoctor]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

Our son will be attaining his PhD soon (Biophysics). It will be interesting to see what value this is determined to have in the job market here.

[wayiwalk]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

One can place the blame for this squarely with the U.S. public school curriculum. The curriculum is fixated on so-called, "basic skills". And what are those skills? Reading, writing, arithmetic, number-cyphering drills, cursive, timed-testing skills, English-only, nationalism, U.S. history, memorization of lists of vocabulary, a focus on specifics and meaningless details rather than important and governing concepts, flag worship, meaningless stories and story-telling, clerical skills, U.S. government, physical education, art, and convergent-thinking.

And what are the important skills omitted in the U.S. public education curriculum? Divergent-thinking, critical thinking, reasoning, questioning, computer literacy, engineering and mechanical skills, a conceptual understanding in the sciences, understanding, construction skills, medical skills, machining, welding, plumbing, drilling, repair skills, basic wiring skills, basic internet use, driving skills, linguistics, entrepreneurship, basic economics, basic law in marriage, basic law in business, basic law in estates, basic law in real estate, and leadership and management skills. Even teaching a basic and rudimentary knowledge of how everything works is omitted from the education curriculum. Spanish for fluency is omitted. Foreign languages are omitted. A primitive and basic knowledge of world history is omitted. A primitive knowledge of the history of the universe is omitted.......

So how can graduates find employment?

You left out the iTulip lesson in basic economics/credit/debt and the time value of money!

[Starving Steve]

Re: Siemens: We can't use burger flippers, real estate brokers and veterans.

You left out the iTulip lesson in basic economics/credit/debt and the time value of money!

What I have found interesting and rather troubling here at itulip is that some posters, maybe not all Marxists, believe that money ought not to have a rent nor a time value associated with it. This Bernanke bunch at the Fed might also believe that money ought not to have a rent associated with it. The latter bunch, are hardly Marxists, but rather some kind of new economists who believe that inflation is caused by the rent assigned to money. They might believe that inflation is a good thing to have in the economy, so zero interest rates would be perfect to re-introduce inflation.

I think this is a really important issue in economics: Ought money to have a rent, and would higher rents ( higher interest rates ) for money be inflationary or de-flationary?