Federal Funds To Train Jobless Are Drying Up

New York Times:

With the economy slowly reviving, an executive from Atlas Van Lines recently visited Louisville, Ky., with good news: the company wanted to hire more than 100 truck drivers ahead of the summer moving season.

Read the whole story at New York Times

Comments

[vidian6]

01:45 PM on 04/13/2012

Is this surprising to anyone, the powers that be would much rather spend 10 times that much putting people in jail, rather than training them.

[soccerdoll]

03:55 PM on 04/09/2012

Seems to me that most could have had an associates degree in the 2 years they have received unemployment benefits or moved to North Dakota to work.

[DEmusicman]

06:15 PM on 04/09/2012

What if you already have several degrees? Understand this....corporate America does NOT care if you are experiecned or educated, especially if you are competent and over 50! They said this loud and clear by laying off tens of millions of people just like that and then keeping them unemployed....

[Six Mill]

07:54 PM on 04/09/2012

then its nodak for you. and yes they do. most people I know make 150k plus and are skilled and have what is needed. you have outlived your usefulness -- what a l/o/s/e/r/ and all the excuses too.

[stephen6446]

03:25 PM on 04/09/2012

The article does not say that federal funds are drying up because of Republicans. So some of you on the hard socialist left seem very confused.

Obama has been spending 1.3 trillion dollars deficit dollars a year. Stop pretending that Obama couldn't stop giving money to other special interest groups that support him politically and give it here if he wanted to.

And a few facts. Retraining is not the answer to the nations problems. There is a lack of JOBS. JOBS will not be created by Retraining.

NPR just ran a show where they discussed the fact that when older Americans go back to school it almost NEVER HELPS THEM. They don't wind up using the new degree in their present job or to get a new job. Retraining is somewhat useless.

OF course there will always be the exceptions to the rules. But people who do not know how to use computers are the OLD people who are moving into retirement. Kids come out of grade school as little computer wizards typing with just thumbs, wirelessly connecting to the world, using all the software, etc etc.

The CBO says Obama has doubled the deficits of Bush. And Obama has spent that massive amount of money in just three years. Obama's last budget called for another 1.3 trillion we do not have, to be borrowed.

It's time to be fiscally responsible. Even socialist have to be fiscally responsible or their socialist state winds up like Greece.

[demilieu]

03:31 PM on 04/09/2012

And just who will hire a 're-trained' 50 year old for an entry-level career position???

[stephen6446]

03:35 PM on 04/09/2012

And your point is......? My point is two-fold.

1. Retraining after college, getting other degrees,etc, generally does not help. That was the subject of a program on NPR and how the colleges will sell people the degrees and tell them it will help them advance a career or get a new career, but it almost never does.

2). Retraining helps NO ONE if there is NO JOB.

What we have is not a lack of training, we have a recession, a lack of JOBS.

[Terri Skau]

04:58 PM on 04/09/2012

We are already broke..;-)

[DEmusicman]

04:51 PM on 04/10/2012

Thanks to the GOP and revenue giveaways to the well connected....

[demilieu]

03:23 PM on 04/09/2012

What percentage of this training has led to re-employment I wonder?

[stephen6446]

03:29 PM on 04/09/2012

Very little. That's a very good question and studies have indicated that retraining and additional college degrees do not tend to help. They tend to just waste time and money.

[demilieu]

03:34 PM on 04/09/2012

I gives people hope and purpose, but the only real emloyment fix is more job opportunites...and that's harder to do than throwing taxpayer money into re-training programs.

[biskitdaddy]

02:57 PM on 04/09/2012

I'll give the devil (Republicans) his due on being able to manipulate the facts. They've managed to label President Obama a communist and socialist; this labelling appeals to the fringe element that dislikes Obama soley on the basis of his skin color. They're now hard at work destroying the middle class, and providing their corporate donors with a steady supply of educated, experienced workers who have no choice but to work for the lowly, meager wages companies are offering now.

[mmsuki]

02:38 PM on 04/09/2012

Penny wise and pound foolish seems to describe the republicans.

People could be trained and placed into jobs, except for the draconian cuts n the name of "deficit control".

[DEmusicman]

03:19 PM on 04/09/2012

Funny how the GOp could care less about deficits during the Reagan, Bush 1 and BU$h 2 regimes. Dick Cheney even went so far as to say that deficits don't matter.....now, all of sudden after they have added nearly 13TRILLION to the national debt largely by giving gobs of money to the already rich and to defense contractors, they get all over Obama and the dems for trying to undo the crisis deliberately created by the GOP....talk about hypocrisy....

[Judane]

01:48 PM on 04/09/2012

In Obama's $780 BILLION 'jobs bill' less than 2% was set aside for jobs training.

They said the bill would ensure that unemployment did not go above 8%.

It has since spent 40 STRAIGHT MONTHS above 8%.

29 of those months AT OR ABOVE 9%.

Thanks Barry. Appreciate that.

[mmsuki]

02:39 PM on 04/09/2012

26 consecutive months with private sector job growth.

Thanks, President Obama.

[soccerdoll]

03:59 PM on 04/09/2012

Barely enough to support new employees coming into the system. Recovery slower than normal business cycle recession and made slower by Obama policies. Thanks bro...

[SmartladyDem]

01:35 PM on 04/09/2012

So, is this company's plan to get the taxpayers to train his employees, he gets the tax breaks for hiring, he gets the tax breaks for being the employer.
Then, after the summer "Boom' in housing moves, and before these workers would get any insurance benefits, he can lay them off and they can go back into unemployment which the taxpayers then pay for again.

What is the downside for the employer?
Are we becoming a nation of temps?
The companies walk away with record profits-and the taxpayer gets to foot the bill again-
this is a mess!

[DEmusicman]

01:58 PM on 04/09/2012

Well said!

[demilieu]

03:26 PM on 04/09/2012

The subsidies only applied to hiring low-paying, under $15 an hour, employees. Most people crushed in the recession were making more than 30k a year.

[Six Mill]

08:49 PM on 04/09/2012

30K? I can make that in a month. My first job 10 plus years ago paid that.

[gsocratesasks]

01:18 PM on 04/09/2012

a waste of your time...

[judiNJ]

01:02 PM on 04/09/2012

Oh, great! So now we have companies with job openings and nobody trained to take these jobs.
THIS is what cuts to government does in real time!

[HitchHikerMel]

01:25 PM on 04/09/2012

Germany has a great solution to this problem, paid apprenticeship programs. It seems to be working well for them and their economy. This is what public-private partnership should be about.

[DEmusicman]

02:03 PM on 04/09/2012

For this country to do what the Germans (and others) have successfully done requires something that is very short supply in this country - common sense and a communal spirit of helping your fellow citizens. Instead of worshipping stupidty and rich peole at all costs, we should be building a future where all have an eqault shot. Instead, thanks to the selfishness, arrogance and selfabsorption of the GOP, we are now a second rate country heading for a third world future. And the GOP shills and syncophants cheer!

[demilieu]

03:27 PM on 04/09/2012

And in Germany by the time you're 12 'they' have decided if you'll be a plumber or a doctor when you grow up. So there's a trade-off.

[vietveter]

12:58 PM on 04/09/2012

I wish that the republicants would be part of

the solution as opposed to always being a

major part of the problem. It might be fine

with them, and their tparty friends, if we

stop trying to elevate our place in the world

by continued education, and just be the slave-

labor they have planned for us.

[DEmusicman]

01:01 PM on 04/09/2012

Since the GOP's demostrated goal is to destroy this country and blame it on everyone else, I seriously doubt they will be involved in anything that is positive....

[graffitijoe]

12:46 PM on 04/09/2012

Why do we need Federal job training money - I watched Debbie Wasserman-Shultz say that Obama has fixed the economy and unemployment is not a big problem anymore.

[Ginny Waller]

01:16 PM on 04/09/2012

That's not what she said.

[letsbepeaceful]

01:26 PM on 04/09/2012

Link to that quote please. I doubt she said that.

[OldTulsan]

12:33 PM on 04/09/2012

Mostly low-paying jobs are being created now...

From Robert Reich: The Downward Mobility of the American Middle Class, and Why Mitt Romney Doesn't Know

"January's increase in hiring is good news, but it masks a bigger and more disturbing story -- the continuing downward mobility of the American middle class.

Most of the new jobs being created are in the lower-wage sectors of the economy -- hospital orderlies and nursing aides, secretaries and temporary workers, retail and restaurant. Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain working only because they've agreed to cuts in wages and benefits. Others are settling for jobs that pay less than the jobs they've lost. Entry-level manufacturing jobs are paying half what entry-level manufacturing jobs paid six years ago..."

[OldTulsan]

12:30 PM on 04/09/2012

A new wage model ?...

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/213475/oversupply-of-nurses-forces-them-to-pay-to-work-for-free
Oversupply of nurses forces them to pay to work for free - Special Reports - GMA News Online - Latest Philippine News

"...The scheme has been “rampantly practiced all over the country" for many years now, added Alvin Cloyd Dakis, national president of the Alliance of Young Nurse Leaders and Advocates International (AYNLA).

Citing statistics from the Professional Regulatory Commission, Dakis said the number of unemployed and under-employed registered Filipino nurses is estimated to range from a low of 160,000 to a high of 200,000.

“With hundreds of thousands of unemployed licensed nurses desperate for work, thousands of them went to hospitals to pay for the limited volunteer nurse slots or to train in order to gain bedside clinical experience in exchange for certificates stating that they were nurse volunteers or trainees for a specific period of time," said Dakis..."

[Brian Gilmer]

02:06 PM on 04/09/2012

In the US, many internships don't pay. Basically what is happening is that companies are taking advantage of a person support network which can include family or government anti-poverty programs.

[OldTulsan]

03:02 PM on 04/09/2012

Workers' past becoming their future...

http://libcom.org/library/us-thibodaux-massacre-1887
US: The Thibodaux Massacre of 1887 | libcom.org

"One of the most interestin­g, and probably least known events in Louisiana history is the Thibodaux Massacre of 1887, the second most bloody labor dispute in U.S. history.

Although most of the blood letting occurred in the environs of Thibodaux, the strike encompasse­d a larger area. The strike affected sugar plantation­s in St. Mary, Terrebonne ,and Lafourche parishes. These parishes make up an area known as the
"sugar bowl." Thibodaux is the parish seat of Lafourche.

The plight of the sugar cane worker in 1887 was one of back-break­ing labor and meager pay. Most field hands were paid approximat­ely 13 dollars a month. They were also paid in script. Script was basically a coupon redeemable only at the company store owned by the planter. The store´s prices were normally marked up 100%. You can see that the worker usually wound up being indebted to the planter. Louisiana law stated that if a worker owed money to a planter he could not move off the planters land until the debt was paid. This law essentiall­y reduced the plantation laborer to the status of serf..."

[mrfreeze]

11:51 AM on 04/09/2012

Yet another example of the private sector "socializing" its costs by putting the burden of training its own workforce on the backs of taxpayers.

For all of you who subscribe to the "free enterprise" model of doing things, why is it that the Feds must help provide job training in the first place? Atlas, the company referred to in the article says it will pay a $3000 signing bonus to newly trained employees. Why doesn't Atlas simply pay the cost for training itself? Awww, that would be money out of the pockets of its management and shareholders. Why not simply pretend that they're "job creators" and foist the cost onto the public sector.