Jobs In America - iBank CFO, Ron Hardway
America is the greatest country in the world and still the world’s largest economy. As Americans, we like a more prosperous world for all citizens and currently we are seeing huge economic advances in many large and small countries around the world. China, India and Brazil collectively have more than one third of the world’s population and have booming economies. Most of what they know about business, technology, consumer demand and prosperity they have learned from us.
A more prosperous world economy should be very good for America, but our economy does not seem to reflect a lot of the expected benefit. There is high unemployment, high under employment and wage stagnation. Why is that? It is because we do not have a work force that can compete with much of the world’s work force. Some of the problem is skill based, some is we have higher work standards, some is labor rates and some is we have lost our willingness to compete.
I believe three of the four above issues can be greatly improved if we as business people are willing to tackle them. We cannot do much about our work standards as none of us support child labor, unsafe working conditions for our workers or a disregard for reasonable wage and hour laws. However, let’s look at the other three work force issues.
SKILLS: We lack a sufficient supply of skilled workers. We have plenty of unskilled workers and plenty of college graduates. However, we do not offer enough encouragement or opportunity for young people to become skilled workers. We need to bring back the notion of having great pride in being a skilled worker.
LABOR RATES: Unions have priced us out of many markets. We need to see business take a proactive approach, with the approval of government, to encourage the development of more non union jobs, not the other way around.. We can treat workers fairly without being subjected to union bosses and a high level of government over sight. Unions used to add value to our society, but I do not believe that is the case in today’s economy.
WILLINGNESS TO COMPETE: We have to want to grow jobs. We have to want to bring back jobs that have gone off shore. I believe most American companies want to employ American workers, but are unwilling to develop the models that are needed to out respond and out deliver the competition we face around the world. We can do it, but it takes focus, focus, focus and government support.
Posted:
2/1/2012 3:58:31 PM by
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