US companies blame unemployment on skills gap

[alp227]

Last edited Mon Jan 9, 2012, 09:56 PM - Edit history (2)

Drew Greenblatt has been looking for more than a year for three sheet-metal set-up operators to work day, night or weekend shifts.

The president of Marlin Steel Wire Products, a company in Baltimore with 30 employees, Mr Greenblatt says his inability to find qualified workers is hampering his business’s growth. “If I could fill those positions, I could raise our annual revenues from $5m to $7m,” he says.

He is offering a salary of more than $80,000 with overtime, including health and pension benefits. Yet in spite of extensive advertising, he has had no qualified applicants. He is trying to train some of his unskilled staff but says none has the ability or drive to complete the training.

Mr Greenblatt’s predicament speaks to one of the biggest economic debates about today’s 8.6 per cent US unemployment rate: is it merely a cyclical problem that will shrink as demand recovers? Or is it something deeper and more structural, a “mismatch” between the skills workers have and those companies need?

The idea there is something structurally wrong with the US workforce is controversial among economists but has a certain resonance with the public. Since the emergence of Japan as a technology and manufacturing powerhouse in the 1970s, Americans have been anxious that they were losing their competitive edge to better-educated, harder-working rivals.

GOOGLE THE TITLE for full articles on Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. There was a similar article on WSJ late last month, "Help Wanted: In Unexpected Twist, Some Skilled Jobs Go Begging" (again Google the title for full article). (EDITED TO ADD) I just discovered you could enter FT.com URLs in liveweb.archive.org and read articles in full for free...as far back as 2005 I've seen. In this case http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d586922-21f0-11e1-8b93-00144feabdc0.html

[RKP5637]

1. Gee, I wonder how many degrees they want ... I guess several are not enough for

anything.

[Thor_MN]

2. Funny how they don't want to understand how the "market" works in this case

It's as if I advertised that I was looking to buy a brand new BMW for $2000, and then concluded that there must be a shortage of BMWs when no one tries to sell me one.

If they can not find the skills they are looking for at the wage they are offering, they need to up their offer. Supply and demand, Simple stuff.

I'd hazard a guess that he would expect his current staff to take training classes on their own time, while also completing their current workload.

[AnnaLee]

3. It is hard to feel sorry for the guy.

He probably has had years to make sure his employees advanced and increased their skills. He probably thinks this is not his responsibility. He probably thinks the people are not motivated because they aren't mastering the skill in the week he is willing to give them.

It may sound that I am harsh but what happened to on-the-job training and mentoring. What happened to making each employee as widely skilled as possible?

[Boojatta]

24. "aren't mastering the skill in the week he is willing to give them."

Maybe he gave them many weeks to learn, but it's just not working out for whatever reason. On the other hand, it's possible that there were job applicants years ago who could have learned from him as quickly as he wished, and it's possible that he considered those applicants to be "overqualified" and refused to even interview them.

[amandabeech]

4. The guy might want to advertise in areas where manufacturing has declined, like Detroit.

There are lots of skilled people around the rust belt who might just be a good fit. Baltimore
is becoming much more of a DC suburb, and I doubt that there are that many sheet
metal workers around to choose from.

[Boojatta]

25. That's a good, constructive idea.

However, it's not clear how politicians could use that idea as a pretext to make ideologically inspired policy changes that will appear to be beneficial, while actually having very significant and delayed detrimental effects that aren't easily traced to the policy changes.

[elleng]

5. Another indication of our messed up educational system.

Anyone remember seeing 'shop' class in high school? Recently?

[bemildred]

6. Well, I blame it on a hiring gap.

The corporations that are supposed to provide jobs are failing to meet their obligations.

[Ruby the Liberal]

7. Oddly, his website only shows 2 listings

A Process Engineer and a Maintenance Mechanic. Nothing about sheet-metal setup operators.

Here is the job opening list from his site: http://www.marlinwire.com/docs/jobs-at-marlin-steel.pdf (PDF format)

You can find it at http://www.marlinwire.com/ then About Us > Job Opening

Seems like more 'lazy people who won't work or learn how' BS from the esteemed WSJ fishwrap




Edit to add - there may be other Marlin Wire and Steel companies in Baltimore. http://www.marlinwire.com/ lists their address as:

Marlin Steel Wire Products
2640 Merchant Drive
Baltimore, MD, USA 21230-3307

[Yo_Mama]

8. GOOD catch!

You got the right website - their press segment links to the FT article.

They are advertising for a part-time maintenance mechanic and a full-time process engineer, and that's it.

A lot of times companies try to create the impression that there are no qualified domestic applicants so they can use H1B. It's much cheaper and they can roll them through without paying for retirement, etc.

If you are desperately looking for someone like this you will find them, and you WILL have the job posting on site.

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. Ding!

H1-B indeed.

My initial curiosity was in what they were looking for that couldn't be found or even trained. Thinking I was going to find that it required a PhD in metallurgy with 14+ years experience, fluent in Hungarian and holding a current mohel certification to preform the bris.

Shame the posting isn't out there on the interwebs for anyone to see. I guess they are keeping this in the purview of the Hiring Agent (read Visiting Worker Attorney) to search for those highly specialized applicants with job requirements such as "don't need health insurance or other benefits".

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Lol.. you crack me up.

Trenchant and humorous, always a joy to read your posts.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Add vocabulary challenged to that.

I had to look up 'Trenchant'.

LOL!

[mother earth]

14. Ding, ding, indeed....gotta justify those visas. Wish I could rec your reply. :)

[Zalatix]

15. Wait for it.

You're going to find yourself confronted with people who say you hate immigrants, brown people and so on. These trolling comments ALWAYS come up whenever H1-B discussions happen.

[Ruby the Liberal]

16. I am more than happy to have that conversation

People can twist it into an anti immigrant stance all they like. If, however, they would like to talk about the economic implications of the overuse of H1-B, then I will be right here with bells on.

[AnneD]

23. This was horse shite when the first uttered it about the Nursing Shortage.....

and it is still horse shite. They want to get an H1B replacement so they can pay them next to nothing. If that didn't work, they just told their overworked staff that they would continue to work short because qualified folks were not applying. It got so bad that I started applying to the floor Nursing supervisor or the Director of Nursing. I have busted more than a few HR beancounters doing that. They want you to have a Master's and work for LVN salary. You cannot have a PhD because then you are overqualified.

There have always been plenty of nurse around, just not many that wanted to work for the chump change they thought they could get away with paying you.

[Ruby the Liberal]

26. IT is much the same way in exploitation.

Try getting a job in IT these days without having encyclopedic knowledge of every programming language ever invented, on top of application specific experience.

Here is one I saw today for an 'entry level' software engineer: We are looking for an individual with a BA or BS, or equivalent experience, knowledge in relational database design and programming (SQL Server), knowledge in Microsoft .NET and VB.NET development experience. While not required, experience with Microsoft CRM or Dynamics GP is a benefit.

Entry level? Reads to me like they are looking for some pretty specific (and developed) skills for little to no pay...

[SixthSense]

12. Companies used to train the skills they needed

and they will do so again

[mbperrin]

17. Yep. It's not very complicated. I was a trainer in a wellhead repair shop for a decade.

Trained tellers and bookkeepers for banks the decade before that.

Very routine stuff - give them enough background to get started, place them with a qualified employee (the one who is getting the promotion after their replacement is trained) and voila, a qualified and motivated employee as well as willing trainers, because that means advancement.

Course, that might mean someone's dumb nephew won't get hired. Oh. well.

[Loge23]

13. Yes, of course it's our fault.

It's our fault that companies don't bother to train anybody anymore. Check out job listings sometime and you'll see under requirements that many companies are looking for an exact match for the opening! Simply, they are taking advantage of the labor market (they think) in limiting their openings to the closest possible fit. This is really not helping the job market, but merely encouraging poaching "qualified" employees from their competitors. I suspect a silent sort of collusion here as well as wages are driven down as people switch jobs.
Then there's companies who have absolutely none of the "loyality" they demand from their workers. They "promote" ethically-challenged individuals, or individuals that display authoritarian characteristics without the substance to back them up. They then dismiss high-paid managers with academic and industry credentials in favor of these newly-minted and lower paid imposters. And we wonder why American business is so screwed!

[Fuddnik]

19. I recently filled out an online application for CSX.

Just for the hell of it. I have over 30 years experience as a Locomotive Engineer and Instructor. And a union officer.

The last part of the process was a questionnaire pertaining to your work habits, and whether you would be a company suck-ass and snitch on fellow employees for just about anything. It wasn't hard to figure out the answers they were looking for, but I was brutally honest.

Two weeks later I got an e-mail informing me that I wasn't under consideration for the job.

[Loge23]

20. Probably the union part derailed you.

Fellow rail vet and fan, Fuddnik - never got to drive the train though!
The online questionaires seem to now be a standard "firewall" for employment. Who knows what kind of algorithms they use, but I never do very well with those either. I figure once I see one of those "personality profiles", I'm pretty well toast.
Actually, I'm a relatively nice chap, high integrity, no skeletons in the professional or civil closet, experienced, educated, and able - so is "preferred" by these profiles?
Yet another reason why American business is in the condition it is - they have eliminated qualifications in favor of "personalities".

[AnneD]

27. OK Fudd....

I know you! They didn't hire you because your children are too hairy but they just couldn't tell you with out triggering a EEOC lawsuit. The fact that you were honest is just a coinky dink.

[Taitertots]

18. Why doesn't he list his "qualifications"?

They should be able to hire ANY new high school graduate to work as a sheet metal set-up operator.

[wobblie]

21. he could fill the job tomorrow

http://smwlocal100.com/

Sheet Metal Workers\' Local 100 provide trained and safest workers in the industry.

[Nikia]

22. He should advertise for a trainee position

He probably is trying to hire someone with all the qualifications. His current workers were probably hired for a position that required few skills and experience. He may have even avoided hiring overqualified people. My most former company tended to do that. They purposely hired people that would start at the bottom and be happy at the bottom. Then the supervisors complained that those hires had no aptitude or ambition when they didn't dare hire people with several years experience in a related field or had taken some tech school classes.
He should try to hire someone with some experience in a related field and/or classes in a technical field with the idea that they will learn those skills. He should make it clear that they will receive a big raise upon mastery of the skills.
I do think that there is some mismatch but usually because employers are less flexible. They should be open to hiring people who could do the job if they are having trouble finding their perfect candidate. Also, some people who do have skills and find themselves unemployed may have trouble finding employers who need their skills within in a given time frame of needing money. They may end in an unskilled job and everyone loses.

[sendero]

28. This is merely the latest .

.... in a string of bullshit propaganda proclamations whose basic message is "Americans can't do it".

Which is 100% bullshit, the truth is "Americans can't do it as cheap as a foreigner living in a hut".

It's amazing that even though these businesses absolutely depend on these "special skills", there is no where you can get them but on the job but nobody has a job to get them.

It's all bullshit.

[PassingFair]

29. Translation: They want geniuses to write code for them for minimum wage*.

* or below if possible.

[stevebreeze]

30. Here is how capitalism is supposed to work.....

If you can't find people to do a job, you raise the wages and/or other inducements to the point were you get qualified people to do the job. Strangely enough employers when faced with this options always want the government to change the rules to allow them to either keep wages the same or squeeze them down. Capitalism does work it is a system of incentives. Those on the top have been allowed to vet the hiring the politicians who make the rules for 40 years. The rules have just been abused to hell by the corporate anti-capitalistic thugs.