"Training doesn’t create jobs.”
New York Times: After Job Training, Many Still Scrambling for Employment:
Hundreds of thousands of Americans have enrolled in federally financed training programs in recent years, only to remain out of work. That has intensified skepticism about training as a cure for unemployment.
Even before the recession created the bleakest job market in more than a quarter-century, job training was already producing disappointing results. A study conducted for the Labor Department tracking the experience of 160,000 laid-off workers in 12 states from mid-2003 to mid-2005 — a time of economic expansion — found that those who went through training wound up earning little more than those who did not, even three and four years later. “Over all, it appears possible that ultimate gains from participation are small or nonexistent,” the study concluded.
Labels: wasted federal dollars
posted by Helen at 5:25 AM
15 Comments:
I know a woman who has been in job training since 2004, and is yet to find a job. She hasn't bothered looking for one, of course.
If you want a job, you'll get one sooner (most of the time) or later (at times like right now.) 'Job training' is usually a waste of other people's money.
Oh, but look at all the trainers and the bureaucracy hires it creates! Broken window scenario ad nauseum. Of course, it was not just this admin if this admin is the poster child for that.
All of these unemployment problems could be easily fixed to simply passing the elevator safety and economic opportunity act.
All of these unemployment problems could be easily fixed to simply passing the elevator safety and economic opportunity act.
Oregon (and perhaps one other state) bans self service gas stations to create jobs. We could also create a lot of jobs by eliminating machinery like backhoes and make construction companies use manual ditch diggers. The way things are going, it may come to that.
So does this mean we can ditch "job training/re-education" as a justification for alimony?
"So does this mean we can ditch "job training/re-education" as a justification for alimony?"
---
Don't get married to a lazy woman in the first place.
I know, it's sometimes hard to tell.
My solution was to not get married.
Now a feminist is going to scream: "But some men are lazy too".
I know, honey, but you don't have to pay for them when you get divorced.
JG,
I have a simpler answer: I don't date men, so I don't much care what their relationship faults are.
Interesting that so many women who could choose any man telegraph a preference for abusive sociopaths.
My solution was to not get married.
Marriage is, after all, the number one cause of divorce. Everyone who was ever divorced was married first...
I am a little impressed that someone had the guts to measure the results and the bravery to publish the truth. No more grants for them, but the truth is powerful stuff when you can find it.
They have found the same results for head start. It helps for a bit, then the improvements dissapear as the child ages. Nothing trumps personal and family responsibility, nothing. All the training, the longest head start, nothing.
And that will be impossible for the ruling class to accept because their world view is built upon how government can "help." So they will ignore the data and find someone who is "smart enough" to agree with them.
Trey
Trey,
I never understood the semantics of the movement to expand "head start" to everyone. If everyone gets a head start, it's not a head start!
In the current political context, I read this not as a story about the ineffectiveness of a government program, but rather as part of the case that the NYT is making for extending unemployment benefits. By trying to cast the job situation as so dire that not even training will help, the NYT is hoping to convince its readers that the only sensible and humane choice is therefore to agree to spend more on unemployment benefits. Now while it is probably best for government to do neither, if I had to choose between which of the two programs to fund, I'd opt for training (however effective it may or may not be) over expanded unemployment benefits any day.
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Well, yeah. Training is a good idea when there are jobs going begging because of a shortage of qualified people. That's the least of our problems right now.
Training in order to be more competitive for jobs is a good idea for the individual, but it's a zero-sum game for society when the job market is saturated at all levels. If you make yourself more qualified for a job, yes, you are more likely to get the job -- but it means someone else doesnt' get the job.
Over the long haul, there may be a sort of "supply creates its own demand" effect in that a glut of labor causes producers to hire more labor. But this only works if the producers can freely negotiate wages. Minimum wage laws pretty much ensure that won't happen.
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