Another Failure Of Our Educational System

Fox Business reports: "Inside GM’s $242M push to rebuild America’s skilled trades workforce," relating:

    Over the past five years alone, the automaker has invested more than $242 million in its skilled trades apprenticeship program, which is geared toward training the next generation of skilled trade professionals with a combination of classroom instruction and thousands of hours of hands-on experience at a GM facility, Michael Trevorrow, GM's senior vice president of global manufacturing, told FOX Business.

    Apprentices will go through up to 672 hours of related technical instruction in a classroom setting and approximately 7,920 hours of on-the-job training with an assigned qualified skilled trades person. Focus areas of the program include a diemaker, electrician, experimental assembler inspector, experimental laboratory paint technician, millwright, metal model maker, wood model maker, pattern maker, pipefitter, toolmaker and machine repairer.    

About a month ago, the New York Post had similarly reported: "Ford CEO Jim Farley laments he can’t fill 5,000 mechanic jobs paying $120K per year: ‘We are in trouble in our country’." That article noted:

    The mechanic shortage at Ford is part of a broader crisis hitting manufacturing and the skilled trades.

    As of August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted more than 400,000 open manufacturing positions — despite 4.3% unemployment. 

    Even when I was in high school back in the 1980s, it seemed that high schools were cutting back on vocational technical training and forcing everyone into an academic track, so part of the blame probably lies with the public schools. But I see articles like this and I suspect that the groundwork is being set for using this to demand more foreign workers rather than actually do anything to expand opportunities for young Americans. Especially as I read articles about the systemic discrimination against white men since the introduction of DEI.