Shortage of Skilled Trades People Reaching Critical Mass
By Joseph Grayhaim
A recent research paper by Manpower, Inc., the global employment and placement company, states that skilled trades-people - welders, bricklayers, carpenters, butchers, plumbers and the like, are in short supply. So short, in fact, that it is causing a slowdown in the economic recovery of countries like Japan, France, Brazil and the U.S.
In Ohio, a shipbuilding company imported experienced skilled workers from Mexico and Croatia. In France, a metal fabricator sought welders from Poland to fill their vacancies.
In the last 30 years, blue-collar work has fallen out of fashion in the industrialized world and now the shortages are becoming critical with the retirement of 60-somethings who were the backbone of this segment of the workforce. According to Manpower, companies complain that younger workers don't have the knowledge that comes with years of experience and therefore, are not the equal of the older workers. If there were skilled workers in between the two extremes of young and old, they would be filling in this gap.
Read More
|
|
Singin' in the Aisles
My daughter and I sing in the supermarket. She considers this natural, being a Music Together child raised by a Music Together teacher. We've been singing every day since she can remember, and now we're adding the pop songs playing in the supermarket to her considerable repertoire. "Oh listen!" I'll say, and then I teach her the chorus to "It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To" or "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." Only once has this habit of ours offended her adolescent sensibility: it was that time we were over by the bratwurst singing "Crocodile Rock" aUnd a man neither of us knew spontaneously began dancing with me. Emma fled to the cereal aisle.
Read More
|
 |
