Lost in the news that Hewlett-Packard is eliminating 14,500 jobs -- 10% of its workforce -- are the cuts in the Department of Labor's budget for training programs for displaced workers. Last year, when Bush was out seducing heartland voters, he
praised Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte for its ``fabulous'' job- training programs and said he would bolster such efforts at two- year colleges with $250 million a year in grants.
A year later, Bush's support for these programs has collided with his efforts to cut the federal deficit. Worker training grants are on the chopping block, and Central Piedmont President Tony Zeiss is worried.
``When the government begins to cut these programs, it's like eating your seed corn,'' Zeiss said. Forty percent of the 70,000 students in the Central Piedmont system are displaced workers seeking training, not college credit, he said. ``We're trying to respond to the skills and labor shortages in America.''
Some business groups say the cuts proposed by Bush and U.S. House lawmakers may exacerbate a shortage of prospective workers with needed skills, contributing to the movement of manufacturing jobs overseas.
``We're concerned businesses won't be able to find the quality workers they need to stay globally competitive,'' said Chrisanne Gayl, policy director at the Washington-based Workforce Alliance, a group of business executives and vocational-education providers that advocates training.
More than a third of 976 companies surveyed in March by the National Association of Manufacturers said they can't fill jobs because applicants lack math, science and technological aptitude.
I doubt this applies to the displaced HP workers, and I'm skeptical of claims like this, because they are often used as justification for outsourcing or importing H-1B workers. But it does prove that all the talk about worker retraining and cushioning the blow to displaced workers is just that -- talk.
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