EoW September 2009

EuroWire – September 2009

The work world

Even in a downturn, American employers

struggle to fill openings for skilled workers

Cianbro Corp (Pittsfield, Maine) is in the business of heavy

general commercial and industrial construction and manage-

ment. Just as the recession began in the US, a company

manager set out to hire 80 experienced welders. “Only now,

18 months later,” wrote Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times, “is

he completing the roster.”

This was offered as an illustration of something easily overlooked

in the standard employment data published by Washington DC.

Yes, the unemployment rate in the US is at 9.4%, the highest

level in nearly 30 years, but companies are begging for qualified

applicants for jobs requiring skills – like welding – that take years

to attain. (“Despite Recession, High Demand for Skilled Labour,”

June)

Electrical lineman, particularly with skill in stringing high-voltage

wires across the landscape, is another occupation in which

openings are going unfilled. Geotechnical engineers, trained

in geology as well as engineering, are also in demand. With

infrastructure spending now on the rise, so are civil engineers

to supervise the work.

“Not newly graduated civil engineers,” Larry Jacobson, executive

director of the National Society of Professional Engineers,

asserted. “What’s missing are enough licensed professionals who

have worked at least five years under experienced engineers

before taking the licensing exam.”

Chris McGrary, the Cianbro manager, made it clear to the

Times

what his company means by ‘experienced.’ Cianbro conducted

plenty of interviews, only to have many of the applicants falter at

the welding test.

It was discovered that only those with ten years of experience

– and not even all of them – could produce a perfect weld: one

without flaws, even in an X-ray. Those who could, if they fit the

bill otherwise, were snapped up within a day or two.

Mr Uchitelle perceives a common denominator with these

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hard-to-fill jobs that would appear to hold significance for

the post-recession US. Employers are looking for people

who have acquired an exacting skill, first through education

– often just high school vocational training – and then by

gaining mastery on the job. But the academic sociologist

Richard Sennett told the Times that this trajectory, requiring

years, is no longer so easy in America.

“The pressure to earn a bachelor’s degree draws young

people away from occupational training,” said Mr Sennett.

He cited two additional factors prejudicial to apprentice

training: outsourcing interrupts employment before a skill

is fully developed; and, layoffs undermine dedication to a

single occupation.

Said Mr Sennett, “People are told they can’t get back to work

unless they retrain for a new skill.”