I have a considerable amount for sympathy with the observations Sergio Galeano makes at The Hill:
An increase in skills is not the only thing that workers need. As shifts in labor demand have hurt the most vulnerable workers, there’s been a stronger spotlight on the mentorship, coaching and wraparound support services that are increasingly being recognized as part of a holistic approach to workforce and human capital development.
This support is critical, as women, minorities, less-educated and low income-workers, young people, and immigrants may all need to cope with making more occupational transitions than their peers as the pandemic winds down.
Many employers have responded to this reshuffling of the labor market by offering greater flexibility and nontraditional incentives. Despite this trend, however, benefits may not expand for all, increasing the risk of a second-class workforce.
There’s a role for government in all of these shifts. One way the government can start is greater federal investment in workforce training. Fortunately, there’s a conversation starting in Washington about the federal programs related to workforce development and training.
One of the major changes in the American economy over the last half century or so is that an increasing amount of the expense of training the workforce has been handed off to the workers. Years ago employee training programs and career paths that moved the employee from having, essentially, no experience to being a senior whatever. Those have vanished or, more precisely, they have become a business. Employers hire to suit—everyone from juniors to seniors in practically every field.
I think that Mr. Galeano is overestimating the ability of government to be an effective participant in this process. Government training programs are inevitably retrospective in nature—rather than training people for the jobs of the future or even the present they train them for the jobs of the past or jobs that will never materialize.
I don’t have a completely palatable solution for these problems. My proposal has long been to tighten the job market by limiting the number of workers brought in (legally or illegally) from abroad and restricting the ability of companies to offshore their workforces but otherwise let the market deal with the problem. That, too, has problems.
“One way the government can start is greater federal investment in workforce training.”
Maybe they ought to start with the biggest workforce training program of them all, the public education system. Johnny can’t read, but he’s subjected to CRT, learns that Johnny having two mommy’s is great and he knows how to put a condom on.
Government is encouraging/subsidizing people to go to college to get expensive and worthless degrees. When I was in high school they had drafting, welding, machining, woodworking etc classes.
Government is interfering in the wage structure of low skilled jobs by importing too many immigrants and forcing out jobs in the icky industries all while subsidizing Americans who don’t want to work in low skilled jobs.
Government has become the very model of the worst tendencies of unions, lavishing wages and pensions on the public sector workers in exchange for votes.
I could go on.
Your experience may be different, but until I joined a small partnership I had never been in a position where some training or mentoring wasn’t involved. And it is not absent from any of the companies I’ve been involved in as an investor. We just like to start with some basic skills, often absent. When the jobs profile was you placed a part and pulled a lever or just needed a strong back an employer could forego training. Not very often today.
I’d say keep government far, far away.
When I started out we were in constant training of one kind or another. I’d estimate from 10% to 20% of our time. In addition the company would pay the full freight to send you to grad school in a field related to what you were doing. Those times have been gone for a long time. I think it’s due to globalization.
When I went back to work for a substantial company not only did I not receive any training at all when I asked to be allowed to take a week to go to a training class I was refused.
All I can say is that yes, your experience is very different from mine. 20% time allocation seems high. Maybe it depends on how rapidly evolving some underlying aspect of the position is.
The steel mill, sclerotic as it was in general, was constantly training. In my first post MBA position (in an industrial firm) I was sent to Stanford’s Executive MBA program, even though I already had a Chicago MBA. Credit training at the bank was serious business.
I know of many firms still financing higher education. My daughter can get a full ride for a Masters in Education from the likes of Northwestern or Vanderbilt if she so chooses.
As far as other fields, in private equity it would make no sense. Its an apprenticeship business. Continuing education is called Associate –> VP –> MD –> Partner. The basic principals of investing are enduring; application requires direct experience. BTW – I had to chuckle at the notion in another post of economists predicting equity prices. Not with my money………..
In one of my early jobs every week for months on end I flew from Chicago to Boston to attend a one day training session. Things were different in those days. Flying was different in those days. I once got an order at 2:00pm to report to HQ in Germany. The flight left at 3:00pm.