According to the Center for Economic Research, “US Businesses lose approximately $160 billion total every year as the result of the skills gap.” According to a 2017 Training Magazine report, the “Total 2017 U.S. training expenditures [employer] rose significantly, increasing 32.5 percent to $90.6 billion. This dropped slightly to an estimated at 87.6 billion in 2018.” On top of this, in 2018 the US spent $50 million on STEM education (simply putting back what was taken out of education after reforms started in the 1980’s) to “address the skill gap of future employees.” While education and training throughout 2020 -2022 was upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, employers seem to be slowly returning to the informal forms of training. Predominant prior to the crisis, informal on-the-job training is a familiarly better alternative (to the online tools and programs they tried during the Covid slowdowns and shutdowns) for their practicality in developing the employer's unique task-based skills.

This history has led some to suggest the skills gap is a farce. Even if your concerns aren’t that extreme, one has to wonder why with all of the money spent, the resources applied and the employers and trainees impacted, we seem to still be struggling with a skills gap that started to reveal itself in the 1980’s.

The fact of the matter is that employers have been just as unfocused and ambivalent about defining the problem as government has been zealous about having the only "solution." While employers say they need and expect workers that can “hit the ground running,” “think outside the box,” “have skills for the jobs of tomorrow” and all of the other buzzwords and phrases circulating, what they really need is workers that can perform their unique tasks and processes, on their unique equipment, in their unique environment within their unique pay structure in a world of change. Not only do employers lack a clear definition of the job as it exists today, internal and external forces never allow a job to fully materialize before it is significantly changed by design or by changes in technology, or relocated out of the education system's service area. Read More

Several decades ago, performance review criteria became a template – one form fits all. In order for that to be possible, the metrics had to become more general, such as whether the individual “works well with others,” “completes projects on time,” “shows initiative.” At best, these types of measures leave the reviewed wondering whose job performance is being discussed. At worst, these subjective measures leave a lot of latitude for the reviewer who sometimes deliberately or inadvertently punishes an otherwise good performing employee. Read More

In May of 2019, the U.S. Education Department sent out reminders to universities of the July 1, 2019 deadline to update their websites to include specific information to comply with U.S. Obama-era "gainful employment" regulations. On July 1, 2019 it was revealed that the U.S. Department of Education published its final regulation to eliminate the so-called gainful employment rule. However, it may not go away entirely. Proponents of the rule say Congress might later choose to alter the regulation in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), which would require the department to again address the issue.nly focuses on the “supply-side” of the equation. No matter how much tinkering goes on with the rule, if employers and government policy fail to provide the quality jobs with quality compensation levels for which the focused college learning is directed, gainful employment may remain an unachievable goal.

We unfortunately know now that what followed was a rapid churning of jobs that used to provide income security and fulfilling careers to all levels of the workforce and made it nearly impossible for anyone to enroll in a 2 or 4-year education program confident there will be jobs waiting for them upon graduation. Read More

I am sure we all thought that after the Economic Crash of 2008 and its horrible aftermath that we had left those days of extreme reaction behind us. But here we are with another test to see who was paying attention.

For some firms, just-in-time manufacturing and extreme lean engineering has made it difficult to ride out the economic effects of the pandemic. Without having warehouses of inventory to call up while the supply chains straighten themselves out, the effects are immediate and debilitating. Many firms frantically attempted to reinvent themselves, in some cases in the most extreme way, without a clearly defined market or consumer, while other firms found themselves "checkmated" nearly overnight.

Those that survived had to scramble to stock their shelves, staff and restaff their organizations while reconsidering every aspect of their operation. The economy and its current inflationary effects are straining workers - who might have just been given a raise - once again, who find it increasingly difficult to support themselves. Companies supported by private equity or who are publicly traded find themselves forced to quarterly cut costs - no matter how practical or short-term - to appease their boards of directors. Continuing a decade's-old practice of denial, of employees being considered a "cost" no matter the employer's years of investment in developing them nor the wealth of knowledge and skills expertise each represents, are first in line to be discarded.

As pawns in this transformation, workers - some with extreme experience - are vulnerable to being reconsidered out of the equation along with the newly hired. Read More

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