Jobs are out there, unlike skilled workers
On the one hand, 14 million Americans are looking for a job. On the other, there are thousands of job openings just waiting for qualified applicants.
What gives?
According to a Reuters report, the problem is that many Americans looking for work aren’t skilled enough for the available positions.
Reuters cites a Manpower survey that found 52 percent of U.S. employers say they have a hard time finding qualified people to fill critical positions, up from 14 percent just last year.
A large chunk of the openings are in skilled trades, Internet technology, engineering, sales and machine operation.
Siemens Corp., for example, has 3,000 job openings, but more than half require science, technology, engineering and math-related skills, areas that are in decline among college graduates.
Adding to the frustration is that as baby boomers – many of whom are trying to hold on to a job as long as they can – approach retirement, fewer skilled workers are there to fill the void.
Top executives say the long-term solution may be found in more vocational training. Click here to search for local job openings.
Christopher Seward
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134 comments Add your comment
Maryland Jacket
October 13th, 2011
4:35 pm
Well, that’s why I was able to find a job within two weeks of graduation…
K-Ster
October 13th, 2011
4:35 pm
FIRS— oh, wait… I’m not skilled enough to be ‘first’
gadem
October 13th, 2011
4:36 pm
education is key…
shaggy
October 13th, 2011
4:39 pm
It’s because the generation that should be taking these jobs is camping out in urban city parks, crying, while `”friending” their fellow morons on facebook or “tweeting’ how cool they are to be putting it to the man.
sethook
October 13th, 2011
4:41 pm
Not too many opening for the professional students out there.
shaggy
October 13th, 2011
4:42 pm
Face it, these “occupy” slacker morons represent failure of the parents to instill any kind of work ethic that doesn’t consist of staring at a stupid text message.
K-Ster
October 13th, 2011
4:43 pm
Oh, Shaggy. Bless your heart. Did realizing you are the past and that those pesky are your future, and id it ache your heart when you realized they’ll be forking your Social Security money? Old people should never forget that they, too, sound like their parents complaining about the silly youth.
If my synopsis fails, just remember: you raised these pesky kids! BLAME YOURSELF!
Sincerely,
Gen. Y Member
Quantavius
October 13th, 2011
4:43 pm
Maryland Jacket,
yes please toot your horn some more about how much better you are than everyone else.
You are the 1%.
K-Ster
October 13th, 2011
4:44 pm
…forgive my typos
UNBELIEVABLE
October 13th, 2011
4:44 pm
I absolute DO NOT believe what “these companies” are telling “Manpower”…..there are PLENTY of highly skilled workers at least here in the metro ATL area – that are looking within these skilled fields to no avail. A lot of these people are 50+ and these companies DO NOT want to hire older workers – even though they have great credentials. They want young, “cheap” labor…..
shaggy
October 13th, 2011
4:45 pm
K-Ster
Sociasl Security money? I’ll sign mine over to charity, and trust me you inane imbecile, I won’t need it for retirement. I planned for numbskulls like you.
Tom
October 13th, 2011
4:47 pm
I am currently on unemployment for the first time in my life at 27. I’ve held mostly part time jobs while I was in high school and college. The last 12 months I had a full time contract position that ended in late july.
When I visited the unemployment office to enroll for benefits I could not believe how many complete losers I saw. I thought to myself, “man no wonder they don’t have jobs”. So I can see why there would be an article about a lack of qualified help.
However, I do believe there are a ton of good workers out there who are sincerely and passionately looking for work. I also believe employers are VERY picky when it comes to searching for applicants. If you don’t match 10 out 10 requirements, they don’t want you. B/c employers don’t want to have to train someone. I don’t bother applying online for jobs anymore, you get lost in a black hole of 10k other resumes.
Unfortunately these science jobs are probably going to be outsourced to India.
K-Ster
October 13th, 2011
4:47 pm
Shaggy, you’d give up free money? Dumb@$$$…
shaggy
October 13th, 2011
4:48 pm
Chicken feed you moron.
lol @ old people
October 13th, 2011
4:48 pm
lol @old people. All they do is complain about us young kids and our work ethic. Given what you old people have done to our control, we wish you would work less. Since 2000, you old people have gotten us in 2 endless wars, run up the federal deficit for us to pay off, gave yourselves free medicare and social security (which my generation will pay for). I wish you all would work less, given the state of the country you old people need to sit down some where as we will be paying for it all.
Jeb
October 13th, 2011
4:49 pm
How does this affect the Dawgs’ 2012 recruiting class?
Valstake
October 13th, 2011
4:50 pm
I never could understand why students were discouraged from vocational and technical schools and pushed toward colleges and universities instead. Not everyone is interested in traditional higher education, but students were almost brainwashed into thinking that was their only option. I think that’s because their high school counselors “pushed, or prodded” them into thinking that was the only way that led to a “good life.”
K-Ster
October 13th, 2011
4:50 pm
Shaggy: Ah, I see that dementia has set in. This isn’t the Great Depression years, gramps. The gov-ment gives out REAL money now, not IOUs or cheese coupons.
Quantavius
October 13th, 2011
4:51 pm
Good one LOL @ OLD PEOPLE
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
shaggy
October 13th, 2011
4:51 pm
lol @ old people
Old people proverb:
Yes, young grasshopper, it is not wise to be jealous of that which you will never have.
K-Ster
October 13th, 2011
4:52 pm
I hope I never have your adult diapers, Shaggy…
shaggy
October 13th, 2011
4:53 pm
K-Ster
So that’s the best you got, with wit like that, I am pretty sure you won’t be able to reproduce, Phew on that one…..
Do you need for me to explain wit for you.
wagnert
October 13th, 2011
4:54 pm
Odd — I just went to Siemens’ website. They only list 1,784 open positions, not 3,000. I guess they want to fill the rest with H-1b’s from India. Better skills, you know.
CT
October 13th, 2011
4:54 pm
Out of work = 14 million
Number of jobs waiting for applicants = Thousands
Uh, yeah training is the problem.
Butch Cassidy
October 13th, 2011
4:56 pm
I seem to remember when companies treated the employees as assets rather than line item deductions, there was no problem finding talent. Why? A couple little things called On The Job Training and Succession Planning. Of course, that was back in the day when you could actually work at the same company for 25 years, and there was a shared interest in the success of the organization. Once you start cutting people in the name of quarterly profits, you end up with a shortage of talent to fill the void when you need it.
bNformedNvolved
October 13th, 2011
4:57 pm
Vocational training should never have gone away b/c everyone is NOT college material, but smart in other ways.
Also, whatever happened to on-the-job training? Partner with the DOL (whose tactics are mostly oudated) to ID potential applicants from those who previously or are currently receiving unemployment benefits. Pay them their benefits (along with a stipend by the employer) while they are in training and then full pay once they become adept at the job.
Also partner with community colleges using these vacancies as co-ops leading to FT employment.
It’s not rocket science, we just have to WANT to do better as a country than we already are.
Maryland Jacket
October 13th, 2011
4:57 pm
If only 1% of people are in computer-related jobs, Quantavius, then we’re headed downhill in this networked global community.
shaggy
October 13th, 2011
4:59 pm
Don’t get me wrong there are some really bright and motivated young people coming along.
People like “K-Ster” will be doing their yard work in the near future.
K-Ster will be doing the yard work people’s yard work.
Ken
October 13th, 2011
4:59 pm
Seeing how this survey is coming from the companies, I have a problem with that. There was a report about discrimination against ppl w/out jobs. If companies don’t want to hire you b/c you don’t have a job, and then say you’re not qualified, what bull is that? There are ppl out there who HAVE the requirements, just companies are giving bogus excuses to not hire.
pete
October 13th, 2011
5:00 pm
whats really sad is georgia wants people to work for free !
mikeotm
October 13th, 2011
5:06 pm
Why can Siemens not train these people.
If you can not find the skill, find the right personality and train it.
I know a guy that was a butchers helper, got a technical director at a telecom company nieces pregnant.
He put him in a QA tester job and trained him.
He is just as good as the indians with college degrees that ALL these technology companies hire.
The Indians send there moneys back home to families and they spend it in India, not the good old USA. SO not only are we not getting jobs, but we are giving to people who send all the savings overseas and lack of that spending causes more loss jobs in USA.
SEND EVERY H1B WORKER BACK HOME AND HIRE AND TRAIN AMERICANS!!!!!!!!
IT IS THAT EASY!!!!!
Shatwavonce
October 13th, 2011
5:06 pm
I knew we were in deep s#!t a few years ago when McDonald’s put pictures of hamburgers and french fries on the cash register keys because their employees couldn’t read numbers.
SAWB
October 13th, 2011
5:07 pm
One of the issues is that a person who spent 25 years in electronics manufacturing might very well have the math and science skills companies are looking for. However, they may not have the formal credentials they are looking for. We need to use our Technical College system to retrain, test and award the credentials necessary for people to handle these jobs. This often times will not require a four year or even a two year degree, but sticking with the old system is easier for Guberment types than attempting something innovative.
Tolls Bane
October 13th, 2011
5:11 pm
Hmmm .. This sounds like a “study” to build the case for more
1) Job-jacking of American Jobs to India and China
2) Bringing over more H1B visa (immigrents) from India, China, et al
Why would any young person go into a field that will either be job-jacked (offshored) or filled with an immagrent?
Macbeth
October 13th, 2011
5:15 pm
High Schools should go back to giving tests that track the person to the skills for the job…like the military does now. This establishes the person’s aptitude and aids in knowing where he/she would be most successful.
Gorilla in the room
October 13th, 2011
5:19 pm
K-Ster and the like, that attitude there may be the reason you’ve had difficulty finding gainful employment. You see, in the mart of competitive commerce brashness and ignorance is not something you want to put on your resume. You see it’s old guys like us that do the interviewing, and after 2 minutes we would know we didn’t want to hire a pud like yourself.
Vocational education has not gone away, it is called Technical College. I teach at one of Georgia’s Technical Colleges that is predominantly black and I can tell you that 80% of these people are there because Hope pays the tuition, Welfare pays for the children and weed, Section 8 Housing pays the rent, and Pell pays for the hairdos, Nikes, and 22 inch rims. Seventy percent of them could care less about the job market because they have no intention of getting a job. We can’t get some of them to even go on an interview because they are scared they might get offered the job.
jama
October 13th, 2011
5:23 pm
I believe technical skills are very important, but so too are the intuitive sense to look internally for solutions, i.e. seek training, instead of pointing outward to blame someone else for our failures. For example, it takes 400 Man hrs to get Cisco certified, why dont unemployed people indulge in that instead of spending much of their time watching sports and crappy TV shows? just my two-sense!
Gorilla in the room
October 13th, 2011
5:26 pm
jama, you can get Cisco or Microsoft Certified in less than 400 hours.
Tech '10
October 13th, 2011
5:32 pm
I concur with MDJacket. Also, there are way too many people graduating with L.A. degrees and no plan on how to implement it or their plans are contrary to reality. A lof of these folks would have been much better off learning a skilled trade or doing some research to find out which professions were projected to be in high demand and then seeing if any of those matched up with their interests. Not hard, just requires some elbow grease and some common sense.
Tech '10
October 13th, 2011
5:36 pm
Gorilla: Your 5:19 comment was horrifying and I am willing to bet that there was little to no exaggeration
jama
October 13th, 2011
5:46 pm
Gorilla: For Your 5:19 comment, i partially agree, but some of these institutions are not being fully responsible to their students. I see most of their employees only worried about their pay check and enrollment numbers…for example…How many Cosmotologist can the metro area graduate without depressing their wages? Folks, we are all in this mess together and we need to take equal responsibility. Guidance counselors, parents, politicians and most importantly parents. This is not a black or white issue. Urban or not… Personal responsibility is what am asking for.
Tom Synder
October 13th, 2011
5:46 pm
This is just another way to place blame on the unemployed. There are plenty of trainable people out there willing to get back to work. Unfortunately we still have people who vote for those that refuse invest in retraining.
Those citizens who are protesting are following the path that use to be common in this country.Americans have gotten tame about fighting for the Working and Middle Classes but that seems to be changing. The country will be better off now that more people have been forced to actually participate in the political system beyond complaining about what’s wrong with other people.
Jean
October 13th, 2011
5:53 pm
I am a highly skilled IT professional. I have not been able to find a job for the past 3 years… My last job was taken by 3 H1B replacements, that I had to train. These companies keep saying that they can’t find Americans with the skills they need. What a crock of sh**. They are not looking for Americans, not when they can hire H1B visa holders for less. It would cost them less to get me the training for new tech, than it will to train these people how to speak English and to teach them how to use the technology that they have all that training in. There should be no more visa lotteries for any type of work visa, until unemployment is back down to a reasonable level.
Skilled Worker
October 13th, 2011
6:05 pm
This is total rubbish! I’m a skilled 37 year old worker and I haven’t been able to find a freaking job since last October. These companies are lying through their teeth!!
Orange11
October 13th, 2011
6:11 pm
usajobs.com – check it out.
ts
October 13th, 2011
6:12 pm
I don’t believe a word of this BS!!!!!….Just another excuse for companies to hog all the cash and make record profits while sponsoring more foreign workers because Americans ” don’t have the skills”!
When the recession first started in 2006/2007 people were going back to school just to have something to do during the day and not feel like a loser by sitting at home all day and now we have a ton of new graduates(1st time and 2nd career) but now they’re saying no one have the skills for these jobs!!!…Yea right!!!
Gorilla in the room
October 13th, 2011
6:13 pm
Jean, Cisco and Microsoft now make more money overseas than at home and that’s where the money stays, and the jobs. It’s cheaper to keep the money offshore than to pay extortionist tax rates to bring it home.
Eric
October 13th, 2011
6:16 pm
A lot of companies make it too hard to get a job! Why has everything (such as technology) gotten so complex that requires all this “retraining” in the first place?
Gorilla in the room
October 13th, 2011
6:18 pm
The job market is constanly changing. I’ve reinvented myself multiple times to stay employed.
LMAO
October 13th, 2011
6:20 pm
Tom cries … “I am currently on unemployment for the first time in my life at 27″