I believe that we should look at the shoe on the other foot also in trying to solve our employment woes in our country today. Simply put, the reason jobs are flowing to other countries like India and China isn't American free trade policy but this country's skills gap, a mismatch of talent and jobs available. We don't have enough STEM workers, those well versed in science, technology, engineering and math, the knowledge areas vital for the manufacturing, repair, sales, upkeep and innovation of the products necessary to drive our cutting edge way of life, maintenance of our infrastructure, our quest for alternative energy and our aspirations for green industries.
We have regressive tax rules that don't favor investment in training and development. High school and college dropout rates are much worse in minority communities, among whom science, engineering and technology are not favored subjects. In Germany, where students right out of high school are trained as apprentices, even as they attend regular classes, to prepare fot the global economy.
In developing economics, far more students are far more serious than in the U.S. They have a do or die attitude, tying their entire survival to their education and their skills. They choose difficult subjects to master and they pursue their dreams until success is achieved. Education is also subsidized by government or free in these places. In contrast American education is very costly and does not deliver the bang for the bucks spent. A lot of American students attend college to play and party rather than to learn. Add to this our aging population, and it is clear that catastrophe looms.
It could be argued that our skills gap itself is a result of a massive jobs transfer to developing economics by American corporations, greedy for profits and cheap labor. But when a global cororation like Siemens, with headquarters in Germany, says that it wants its U.S. division to take off but cannot find enough workers, that means we are not merely plagued by a skills atrophy, we also suffer because our education system is not providing engineering and math skills from the outset.
In a couple of decades the globe's entire work force, including the ones in India and in China, will be affected. Those with contempt for hard work and education, those unprepared for change and novel ideas and those who refuse to train in unfamiliar skills are all in jeopardy. Corporate greed is only a part of this story. Your comments are most welcome here. Thank You & God Bless.
Rev. John.
