Why Germany trains it workers better (Atlantic)

I've been saying this and talking about Germany's apprenticeships for years.

However, Jacoby cautions us that we can't hope to simply transplant Germany's system in the U.S. Why?

First, because we don't have the same system of strict academic tracking that Germany does from a young age. (Although there are second and third chances in Germany to get more or different education).

Second, because we don't have a state-funded system of vocational and higher education that Germany does. It all costs money, folks.

And third, because U.S. corporations don't have the same long-term view of developing "talent" (which, in the U.S., is supposed to come from nowhere). In Germany they know it costs time and money and yet they see the ultimate competitive value in it. Not so here.

Read on!

Why Germany Is So Much Better at Training Its Workers

By Tamar Jacoby

October 16, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why-germany-is-so-much-better-at-training-its-workers/381550/

Harvard survey: Businesses don't want to hire

What about Obamacare?  What about "uncertainty?"  This Harvard competitiveness survey can't be right. I'd rather trust one of those instant click-on surveys on Fox News' homepage.

America's 'Job Creators' Would Rather Do Anything But Create Jobs: Survey

By Mark Gongloff

September 8, 2014 | Huffington Post

America's capitalists take every chance they get to remind us that they are our "job creators," but it turns out that their least-favorite thing on earth to do is create jobs.

Most U.S. business leaders would rather build robots, outsource work or use part-time employees than hire workers full-time, according to a new Harvard Business School survey. Here's a nice infuriating graphic from the smarty-pantses at Harvard Business School, who are educating all of our future non-job-creators in the art of not creating jobs:

As you can see from the chart, 46 percent of our job creators would rather spend money on technology than employ humans, compared with a sad 26 percent who prefer people to robots, and another 29 percent who were confused or indifferent about the question or fell asleep while the survey taker was talking. Forty-nine percent would rather outsource than hire, compared with 30 percent who'd rather hire.

Ever notice how the stock market and corporate profits are at all-time highs, while our wages are flat and roughly half of us still think the economy is in recession? This chart helps explain it, and helps explain why workers' share of those corporate profits is near its lowest since the Truman administration.

This is also bad news for the future of the economy because it means fewer workers are getting the training they need for our super-awesome, high-tech, no-job economy, Harvard pointed out:

"Firms invest most deeply in full-time employees, so preferences for automation, outsourcing, and part-time hires are likely to lead to less skills development," the study authors wrote.

This will give business leaders, who already think we lack the necessary skills for their precious jobs, even less reason to hire us in the future.

Unemployed don't need job training, they need jobs

Peter Van Buren's view is pretty controversial. Then again, anything that refutes accepted wisdom usually is controversial.

On Van Buren's side though is economics: supply and demand. Giving unemployed people job skills or even training in trades is like working only on the (labor) supply side, while ignoring whether those skills or trades are demanded by employers.

"So the $18 billion question is: If job training is not the answer, what is?" asks Van Buren.

The obvious answers, grounded in tested economics, will make self-styled "free-marketers" uncomfortable [emphasis mine]:

Jobs. Jobs that pay a living wage. The 2008 recession wiped out primarily high- and middle-wage jobs, with the strongestemployment growth in the recovery taking place in low-wage employment, to the point where the United States has the highest number of workers in low-wage jobs of all industrialized nations.

There are many possible paths to better-paying jobs in the United States where consumer spending alone has the power to spark a “virtuous cycle.” That would mean more employment leading to more spending and more demand, followed by more hiring. One kickstarter is simply higher wages in the jobs we do have. For example, recent Department of Labor studies show that the 13 states that raised their minimum wages added jobs (at higher wages of course) at a faster pace than those that did not. On a larger, albeit more contentious scale, are options such as a WPA-like program, changes to tax and import laws to promote domestic manufacturing, infrastructure grants and the like. There’s the $18 billion being spent on job training that could be repurposed for a start.

No matter the path forward, the bottom line remains unchanged: Training does not create jobs. Jobs create the need for training. Anything else is just politics.

Nevertheless, I imagine that Democrats and Republicans wouldn't be willing to give up the promising-sounding idea of jobs training. Therefore my suggestion is for the government to pay for job training only when it is tied to a real job offer at a real company. I mean, first a company must say, "I promise, before the government spends a cent on training, to hire x  number of workers who have mastered a, b and c  skills."  That might work. Then the government would have to hold them to it. 

But I doubt that many companies would go for it; they'd want to retain right of refusal.

$18 billion in job training = lots of trained unemployed people

By Peter Van Buren

July 23, 2014 | Reuters

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS92508355420140723

The true life of a 'welfare queen'

My dear conservative friends love personal anecdotes over cold statistics -- which we lib'ruls just fake anyway.

So here's a real "welfare queen's" experience of what it takes to qualify for, and keep, welfare assistance [emphasis mine]:

The first step in the food-stamp application process was turning in every imaginable document regarding my identity, housing, assets and personal finances. I was photographed and fingerprinted, which made me feel like everyone thought I was a criminal. After winding my way through the byzantine bureaucracy, including several hours-long appointments during which I obviously couldn't be looking for work, I was finally approved; the monthly allotment worked out to about $5 per day.

To keep receiving food stamp benefits, I had to spend every "work day" at a Human Resources Administration work-search office – my presence there was mandatory from Monday through Friday and from 9am to 5pm. The office was more than an hour from my apartment (that is, when public transportation – which I had to pay for myself – was functioning properly), but arriving even five minutes late earned a strike against my record for "non-compliance".

Two strikes, and I would have been out: the US system automatically revokes all benefits for rule-breakers, who then have to start the application process all over again. It's not a pleasant thing to discover when you're attempting to pay for groceries and your EBT card suddenly no longer works. The only excusable absences are job interviews – which required asking the interviewer for a mortifying letter of verification – or for illness with a doctor's note.

I asked about what would happen if I'd had a cold but couldn't afford to go to a doctor just for a note about it. My caseworker shrugged and said I'd have to go to the ER.

As I've told my conservative friends, and Gray emphasizes, "No one wants to be on welfare":

No one wants to worry about being judged as "wasteful" by pundits and policymakers and the people behind you in line for using your Electronic Benefits Transfer card at the grocery store to buy your prepackaged food, because you're too exhausted from 12 hours on your feet at a retail job and you don't have the time or the energy to cook.

No one wants to fear buying cake mix for a child's birthday celebration, only to receive scornful glares from other shoppers because they aren't buying rice and beans.

No one wants to explain for the fiftieth time that, Yes, my EBT card only works at grocery stores, and only for food – and, no, it can't be used for paper towels or beer.

Welfare-to-work, even if well-intended, has become overly bureaucratic and outdated:

The reality of meeting workfare requirements, however, is different from the idealized bargain of "will work for food". The bureaucracy today is mind-numbingly difficult to navigate and ultimately serves to block welfare recipients from access to better jobs and educational opportunities. [...]

Annie Hollis, a Baltimore-based social worker who has worked in urban settings for over 10 years, explained why the Clinton-era reforms were flawed and discriminatory from the start. "The problem with workfare is that in the wake of globalization, most of the jobs available to people without postsecondary education are increasingly part-time and minimum wage," she told me.

Policy hasn't caught up to that reality because recipients are only permitted to receive vocational training for a maximum of 12 months. Based on my personal experience working with single mothers leaving domestic violence situations, most jobs that pay a living wage require much more than one year of post-secondary education.

If federal workfare requirements weren't already stringent enough, states such as Florida, Georgia and Maine have pushed to expand the hoops that applicants must jump through to avoid sanctions – including eliminating waivers for job training absences due to illness to forcing recipients to pay for their own unconstitutional drug testing. 

I got my Master's, couldn't find a job and lived on food stamps. Now stop calling me a 'welfare queen'

By Stefanie Gray

June 15, 2014 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3q2kk