Post by ck4829 on Dec 28, 2016 12:20:49 GMT
LE SUEUR, Minn. — Customers can’t get enough of Cambria’s quartz countertops, and the million-square-foot production facility here is racing to keep up. Under bright lights and high ceilings, churning machinery fuses quartz crystals into heavy slabs and polishes them until they shine.
This facility is short 40 production workers. It took months to find all the workers for a new assembly line added earlier this year — even after Cambria boosted entry-level wages from $16.66 to $18 an hour. The labor shortage is costing the company some $3.8 million per month, said Marty Davis, the company’s president and CEO.
Employers across the country, from manufacturers in rural Minnesota to hospitals in New York City, are having trouble filling jobs. It now takes about 28 workdays to fill the average job vacancy, compared to about 24 days, on average, in 2007.
The declining unemployment rate has made it more difficult for employers to find workers, but it’s still tougher than it should be given the current jobless rate. Since the recession ended, the number of job openings has increased faster than the number of new hires.
The usual explanation offered by business and education groups is that too few Americans have the right skills for the openings. The way to close this “skills gap,” they say, is to improve job training and more closely align higher education to employment.
But this solution, promoted by politicians as the way to help workers left behind by globalization and automation — both major challenges for the country in the 21st century — is too simplistic.
Throwing more public dollars at education and training won’t be enough to connect willing workers to open jobs. In many places, employers are also setting wages too low, defining qualifications too narrowly, or not recruiting widely enough. Many people who are eager to work can’t because they lack transportation, or don’t have anybody to watch their children during the workday.
www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/11/14/Its-Not-Skills-Gap-Why-So-Many-Jobs-Are-Going-Unfilled
groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/burnoatus_control/conversations/messages/7
This facility is short 40 production workers. It took months to find all the workers for a new assembly line added earlier this year — even after Cambria boosted entry-level wages from $16.66 to $18 an hour. The labor shortage is costing the company some $3.8 million per month, said Marty Davis, the company’s president and CEO.
Employers across the country, from manufacturers in rural Minnesota to hospitals in New York City, are having trouble filling jobs. It now takes about 28 workdays to fill the average job vacancy, compared to about 24 days, on average, in 2007.
The declining unemployment rate has made it more difficult for employers to find workers, but it’s still tougher than it should be given the current jobless rate. Since the recession ended, the number of job openings has increased faster than the number of new hires.
The usual explanation offered by business and education groups is that too few Americans have the right skills for the openings. The way to close this “skills gap,” they say, is to improve job training and more closely align higher education to employment.
But this solution, promoted by politicians as the way to help workers left behind by globalization and automation — both major challenges for the country in the 21st century — is too simplistic.
Throwing more public dollars at education and training won’t be enough to connect willing workers to open jobs. In many places, employers are also setting wages too low, defining qualifications too narrowly, or not recruiting widely enough. Many people who are eager to work can’t because they lack transportation, or don’t have anybody to watch their children during the workday.
www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/11/14/Its-Not-Skills-Gap-Why-So-Many-Jobs-Are-Going-Unfilled
groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/burnoatus_control/conversations/messages/7