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Retraining overrated?
March 26, 2006
Laid off? Planning to retrain? Don’t bother! That’s the depressing news from The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences, by Louis Uchitelle, excerpted in today’s New York Times (free, registration required).
Uchitelle, a Times economics writer, reports in this excerpt on the plight of laid-off airline mechanics, who he says have little hope of obtaining new positions that pay as well as their old ones. It’s a myth, he says, that “an appropriate job at decent pay materializes for every trained or educated worker.”
The problem, he says, isn’t restricted to laid-off blue-collar workers: “millions of American workers have more skills than their jobs require. That is particularly true of college-educated people,” who often take jobs, such as office administration, for which they are overqualified.
Let’s hope the complete book, to be published Tuesday, offers some constructive suggestions.
Posted by Rick Nelson on March 26, 2006 | Comments (0)
