According to a 2011 Georgia Department of Labor survey, there are as many as 5,000 technical jobs in the state, with employers anxious to fill them.
So said state Labor Commissioner Mark Butler in an address to the at the 2012 Regional Workforce Development Summit in Macon.
“That tells us we have some catching up to do,” Butler said. “ If you look back at history, after every major recession, in the recovery years you see a ‘skills gap.’ Companies that have survived have new ways of doing things, new technology.”
Obviously, if every one of those jobs were to be filled tomorrow the result would not solve Georgia’s employment problems. The state posted an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent in April, with 423,495 Georgians officially classified as jobless (Georgia Department of Labor website, www.dol.state.ga.us).
But it would mean 5,000 people off the unemployment rolls and on the tax rolls. It would mean 5,000 more Georgians in high-skill, high-paying jobs, and better lives for thousands more Georgia families.
An inability to fill those jobs poses risks not just to the workforce, but to the state’s economic health: If Georgians don’t get the skills they need, Butler said, “we will not be able to attract new industries and we will not be able to keep the ones we have.”
The commissioner said the state needs to make technical colleges its top focus in education — which brings the issue around to Columbus Technical College and the 25 other member institutions in the Technical College System of Georgia.
Georgia’s HOPE scholarship can help pay technical college tuition, and there are other grant and loan programs available as well (details are available online from Columbus Tech at columbustech.edu and from the technical college system at tcsg.edu).
Thousands of Georgians need jobs, and thousands of jobs need Georgians. Only the “skills gap” stands in the way.
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Not every job requires computer skills.
And worse is the fact that the kids of today have such wonderful role models to imitate, rappers, drug dealers, movie stars and singers who are always in trouble with the law or in detox.
Even the military branches have gotten much more selective in who they will accept.
The future of this country is in serious danger.
Amen!
The future is now and we are in danger.
Europe is failing and whether we like it or not, we hurt when they hurt.
There is an online site that lists some companies that hire illegals. I am sure that it is a small number, but it is a start. I no longer go to the Marietta Diner, one of my favorites, and I do not go to Frankies anymore.
http://www.wehirealiens.com/results/index.asp
It takes all of us helping eac other to t=restore our country. We are in tough times, but we owe it to our fellow citizens to do the best we can.
PS Notice, if you go to the site, that much of the illegal hiring is in Atlanta where our Young black fellow citizens have an over 25% unemployment rate.
I have close friends who have 'skills' and are not even considered by the Great All Knowing American Businesses. The excuses for not hiring are numerous: too old, too expensive, etc. Let's face it the "Market" is all about greed and nothing but greed with short term gain not long term growth.
The middle class is being systematically destroyed by the Right Wing Zealots - with the Koch brothers leading the way. Quit blaming hard working Americans and put the blame where is belongs - Banks, Wall Street, CEO's, and Politicians (both parties).
However, I do agree with you that Career Technical Education should be emphasized at both the high school and technical college level.
God help us.
Your rabid attack on Its Past Due is so typical of someone on the left. Then you state that the jobs fled solely based on one party's affiliation, you show yourself to be unable to come to a logical conclusion.
Guilty parties are on both sides of the aisle. They are known as employers or businessmen. Joe Smith moves his sneaker division to China. How long can his competitors continue to make sneakers while paying employees $12 and hour while Joe Smith pays 36 cents an hour in China?
So, to stay in business the other sneaker makers follow Joe to China. What happens to the good guys who stay here and provide jobs?? They go bankrupt.
You know , it costs so little to ship things these days that almost anything that is manufactured can be made in low wage countries to undersell American made and shipped back and forth at low expense.
But fools like you put on your party hat and go on the attack. You spill your partisan poison on blog sites and do not add one positive thing to the problems we have today.
Maybe the antidote is to go back and see who created the treaties like NAFTA, CAFTA. I think you will find both parties guilty.
As for me, I do not blame the left or the right, I blame them all and I try, every time I shop, to find the Made In The USA label whenever and wherever I can.I do not hire tradespeople who cannot speak English, when I can avoid it. I ask for American workers. You can too. Use your wallet instead of your mouth or your poisonous keyboard.
Ask your Rep or your Senator, on the left or right to put his/her American hat back on and fix the darned problems we have.