Help Wanted: In Unexpected Twist, Some Skilled Jobs Go Begging

[alp227]

DENVER—Ferrie Bailey's job should be easy: hiring workers amid the worst stretch of unemployment since the Depression.

A recruiter for Union Pacific Corp., she has openings to fill, the kind that sometimes seem to have all but vanished: secure, well-paying jobs with good benefits that don't require a college degree.

But they require specialized skills—expertise in short supply even with the unemployment rate at 9%. Which is why on a recent morning the recruiter found herself in a hiring hall here anxiously awaiting the arrival of just two people she had invited to interviews, winnowed from an initial group of nearly five dozen applicants. With minutes to go, the folding chairs sat empty. "I don't think they're going to show," Ms. Bailey said, pacing in the basement room.

Her challenge is a familiar one to recruiters, especially in industries that require workers with trade skills such as welding. Union Pacific struggles to find enough electricians who have worked with diesel engines. Manufacturers in many places can't find enough machinists. Oil companies must fight for a limited supply of drilling-rig workers.

Google the title and click within results for full article, and link is http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203707504577010080035955166.html

[bemildred]

1. I guess the expecters failed to expect right once again. nt

[ingac70]

2. Skilled trades USED to be well paying jobs.....

good paying ones are few and far between so most don't bother going to school for it.

[Arctic Dave]

3. Not this bullshit again.

This is just another horseshit way companies try to pay people less. They make completely irrelevant qualifications that could never be had.

[haele]

4. Operative words - "Skilled Trades"

Don'tcha know everyone is supposed to go to college and be an engineer, doctor, or lawyer?
Skilled trades, work that gets dirt under your fingernails, are for low-lifes, slackers and kids of immigrants.

Clue for MBA's, Ivy-League alumni hacks, and other corporate weenies and MBAs - the term "Skilled Trades" means someone has to spend an inourdinate amount of time and sweat-equity to hone a critical skill into something valuable, someone who "deserves" a good, secure wage and benefits to compensate for the time and effort it takes to reach the level of an experianced skilled tradesman. It's not something any Joe or Jane off the street can pick up and be trusted to put your business or your customer's lives in their hands after a week.

Need someone to swrk on a large, complicated disel engine or wire up an electrical switchboard for a large office building complex - sure, just download a few you-tube clips, and your just barely out of high-school student can do it; after all - aren't workers a fungible tool?

Damn Wall-Street culture...they spend so much time making electronic wealth in a computer-aided virtual workplace, they forget what real work and tangible results are.

Haele

[Chan790]

5. Of course, they won't train. Nobody does anymore.

Both of my parents started out as skilled laborers and ended up in management. How did they become skilled laborers? They were trained in those skills by an employer that needed those skills and were paid well during training on account of their union.

[snot]

6. +1!

[LongTomH]

16. Oh, we do train, all the time!

American workers are asked to train their replacements from India, China, wherever, every day!:grr:

[bhikkhu]

7. So many going back to college take history rather than welding...

I understand the "OP is bullshit" perspective, and there is undoubtedly some of that going on, but there is also a shortage of people learning skilled labor.

I know in my little niche field of mechanics, I had to work hard to get in, and I was interested to begin with because it was a challenge. I read old manuals, asked questions, and learned enough to pass a certification test, which raised the eyebrows of my employer at the time enough to put me with one of the old timers for two weeks, after which I was on my own and did fine. I've lived all over the country since then and have never had a problem getting a job. In the current recession I've been secure - fortunately.

One thing that has bothered me over the years - 25 on the job now - is that I don't know anyone younger than me that knows how to do my job, I've never had a trainee anywhere, and I've never worked with anyone that seemed especially inclined to learn.

I've heard from other people - railroaders and electricians that I know - enough stories like the OP to make me believe its is a real problem. Manual labor, skilled labor, technical work, stuff that's hard to learn and gets your hands dirty, and where you might have to be more or less outdoors a lot - that's not what people who are out of work are learning to do, and not what kids coming into the workforce seem interested in doing.

[Citizen Worker]

8. Jobs in the skilled trades were sent overseas and with little prospect of full time employment the

skilled trades no longer attract young people. I predicted this 20 years ago. It has taken longer than I expected at the time but it's here now. In another 20 years we'll be lucky if anyone knows what a welding stinger is used for let alone how to use one.

[Tesha]

9. Are these stories "plants"?

A week or so ago, NH Public Radio did a story very much like
this, only the jobs that were going unfilled here were high-tech
software engineering jobs. And the fellow who was doing the
moaning was a person of obvious Indian descent talking about
how he just had to have more H1-B visas or his contact jobs
would all go unfilled or be outsourced directly to India.

The story really pissed me off. Here in NewEngland, there
are literally tens of thousands of unemployed/underemployed
software engineers with specializations in every area of the
discipline. But I guess they all expect to receive decent wages
and benefits in return for their work so that makes them
unemployable.

Tesha

[bemildred]

12. Why yes, yes they are, the idea is that its all your fault you don't have a good job. nt

[LongTomH]

15. Yes, expect corporations to ask congress for more H1B visas any time now!

Supposedly, these will be to fill "well-paying jobs that go unfilled!" :puke:

And, you can expect some mid-career American workers and professionals to be asked to train their H1B replacements!:grr:

[Mopar151]

10. It's about the pay rate, and a lot more

I'm a machinist, and this has been the story in my trade for decades. Raise the starting wage, improve working conditions, and offer some free training to your top applicant pool - even if you don't hire all of them.
And learn to treat people with respect and dignity. This is a particular problem in the skilled trades, because employees and applicants are often considerably more intelligent than the junior minions and HR staffers tssked with "managing" them.

[Demeter]

11. Employers Can't Get Something for Nothing

in other news--dog bites man.

[jtuck004]

13. A look for welding jobs at UP brings up Laborer/Welder

starting at $15.90, one position in Kansas, iirc, about $18 something. Just enough that if you have two incomes, you can get a mortgage, become an indentured servant for the banks, not enough to get ahead or send the kids to college or help keep up the consumer end of our economy. But perhaps you will move up. Or along - it is a transportation company, after all.

They have a few more, here, though in looking around on the web the hiring process is fraught with peril, few are chosen, so I am not sure how much wringing of hands really goes on about these "unfilled postions".

However, given that 25 million people say they would like a full-time job and can't find one, and the JOLTS survey says there are only 3 1/2 million jobs available right now, I would think the WSJ would be of more service if they would spend their time encouraging and promoting new business to start and hire, that one doesn't necessarily need expensive schools to learn valuable skills, maybe help people understand that ending inequality raises all ships.

Because they keep going like this one might think that they are out to convince the unemployed, and the public, that those who need jobs are somehow deficient.

"...the hardest battle isn't with Mr. Charlie. It's with what Mr. Charlie has done-to your mind". Jerry Farber

[treestar]

14. Why don't they train someone then?

If there were that many applicants, some of them could have been close enough to what they needed to learn the job.

If they really needed someone, they'd do that.

[txlibdem]

17. They winnowed down the initial pool by telling them what the job will actually pay (0)

Probably another $15 an hour wage slave job that these corporations think we should jump at despite having 20 years experience in the field.

American Capitalism has failed. We need a new economic system: based on a Resource Economy.

[Fearless]

18. This fake shortage is caused by employers being unwilling to have on the job training available.

[Politicalboi]

19. Drug test stop people from applying too

So you smoke weed 2 weeks ago on YOUR time off but can't apply without cheating. But be an alcoholic that's fine, but don't come to work drunk. I'm sure it happens more than people think. They need to stop intruding on our time away from work.

[alp227]

20. And the governor of Florida, who pushed a drug testing for welfare policy,

co-founded a drug testing company and caused a conflict of interest controversy. Don't you think that a drug testing industry fueled this "test for drugs but not alcohol" thing? Also companies take advantage of the failed anti-drug laws...of course once again influenced by the pharmaceutical and alcohol and drug-testing lobbyists.