By RACHEL BURSTEIN
Labor Day offers an opportunity for politicians and economists to offer their two cents on the state of labor. It’s a good bet that some of that commentary will focus on the so-called “skills gap” — the notion that millions of jobs in highly technical fields remain unfilled while millions of Americans without those skills remain unemployed.
The solution according to the pundits? Education and training that focus on technical skills like computer engineering, or on crucial but scarce skills like welding. Match these newly trained employees with open jobs that require those skills and, voila, the skills gap is gone — and the labor market is steadied.
If only it were so simple.
Yes, more American workers need to learn skills that are underrepresented in the labor market. And yes, those technology titans who advocate for more challenging school curricula, for greater funding for science and engineering education and for immigration reforms to bring more skilled workers are responding to a real problem. But that’s not all there is to it. The problem with the skills gap argument is that it accounts for only one set of skills that employers consider important.
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Read the full article at TIME.
