Tag Archives: Non-College Youth

Summary of Great Ideas from JEC Hearing

4 Jun

I realize I dropped the ball on providing a summary of the great ideas out of the Joint Economic Committee’s hearing on Avoiding a Lost Generation: How to Minimize the Impact of the Great Recession on Young Workers.  Young workers are facing record high unemployment and make up a disproportionate share of the unemployed.  

With statistics like these, we need every good idea we can get.  Arranged by originator:

Dr. Till von Watcher, Columbia University

  • Combine the delivery of unemployment benefits with better job steering and training programs.
  • Help young workers help themselves by giving them the information they need regarding projected future job growth and regionalization of industries – much of this information is already compiled by government agencies, but difficult to access and use.
  • Provide young workers vouchers for training, so its more affordable and possible.
  • Bring employers back into the discussion.
  • Increase the mandatory schooling age past 16, which was set for factory work.  Increasing the age will help them enter the workforce later with more skills.
  • Encourage partnerships between pools of small businesses and community colleges to provide training programs.

Dr. Harry Holzer, Georgetown University

  • Better connecting workforce development programs with education system.
  • Expand summer youth employment programs beyond summer months.
  • Increase the quality and quantity of training and certificate degree programs.
  • Better targeted efforts to employ those that are the most disadvantaged, including expanding public service employment opportunities for these young workers.
  • Tax credits for training and hiring young workers, to make it more affordable.
  • Encouraging students to go to training or certificate programs rather than college does not need to be seen as a bad thing, if those workforce development programs provide a clear pathway to success.
  • Good paying jobs for those with skills, but less formal education, still exist – but our education system does not push students to them.
  • We need to do something about the fact that once you are incarcerated and released, you are essentially unemployable.

David Jones, Community Service Society of NY

  • Tax credits for small businesses for hiring young workers.
  • Federal transportation dollars should be used to hire young workers.
  • Better enforcement of statutes that encourage hiring of young workers, like housing authority regulations.
  • Subsidies for young workers to afford community colleges and technical training schools.
  • Summer employment programs must offer real jobs to prepare young workers for entering the labor market and must connect to potential jobs later on.

Stephen Wing, CVS Caremark

  • Go into elementary and secondary schools to begin educating students about different jobs, so they can orient for the proper pathway to that job early.
  • Partnerships between foundations, government, the community, and businesses is crucial.
  • Young people will stick with the training programs if they feel they are learning real skills that will increase their opportunities.

and then some not-so-great ideas:

James Sherk, Heritage Foundation

  • End the minimum wage.
  • Strip out all labor market protections because they limit job growth.

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Value of College Part 3

1 Jun

Rebecca Mead with the New Yorker chimed into the debate on the cost of college and if college degrees are for everyone in this week’s issue, arguing that we need to consider the sources and remember that college is meant to bring more than just a larger paycheck.

She correctly points out that the very people making the argument to deny many students the pathway to college, are post-college graduates.  Professor Richard K. Vedder of Ohio University has a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and Professor Robert I. Lerman of American University has Ph.D. from M.I.T.  Additionally, many of the anti-intellectual advocates who supported Sarah Palin or George W. Bush, were themselves very well educated.

More importantly, they are only looking from the baseline, raw salary perspective.  In deciding college is not useful or worth the money for say letter carriers, they fail to think about what is self-fulfilling or makes for an educated citizen.  “One needn’t necessarily be a liberal-arts graduate to regard as distinctly and speciously utilitarian the idea that higher education is, above all, a route to economic advancement.”

Providing students more pathways that do not include college is not in itself a bad thing.  But there needs to be clear pathways, guided by real training and certificate programs, to good jobs for non-college youth.  These pathways, in addition to providing the opportunity for economic advancement, must provide some opportunity for less pragmatic learning as well.

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Union Growth Rate in Jobs for Non-College Youth

21 May

Earlier in the week, Young Workers Movement posted on the imbalance in the wages between jobs available to college-educated workers and non-college educated workers, despite the growth in many occupations that do not require advanced degrees.  That’s because the only substantial institution that could conceivably increase the wages and benefits of these jobs, a union, is, unfortunately, not there.

The rate of union membership in the private sector is at an all-time low: 7.2% (7.4 million workers).  For the youngest workers (16-24 year olds), mostly non-college educated, the overall rate (public and private) is 4.7%.  The recession has certainly taken its toll, as have labor laws that make it nearly impossible to form a union if management puts up a fight.

More troubling, however, is that union membership is mostly contained in declining industries – meaning the jobs that are structurally being lost are more likely union jobs than the jobs that are being gained.  As Gary Chaison in the January 2010 Monthly Labor Review analyzed, “In the 10 industries with the greatest employment growth, 19 percent of new jobs were held by union members.  Among the industry classifications with the greatest decline, 24 percent of the jobs lost belonged to union members.”

Sadly, those numbers are an improvement.  A 1999 study conducted by the AFL-CIO found that 80% of the jobs lost over a 14-year period were union jobs, compared to only 5% of the jobs gained.  It was that study that promoted the AFL to take a greater interest in organizing – an investment that paid off, but is no where near fully realized.

But whats particularly alarming for non-college young workers, is that for the lowest-paying occupations that have the greatest projected growth with little collegiate education necessary, unions do have a depressing growth rate.

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Industry

Percent of New Jobs Held by Union Members

Restaurants and other food services

6.0%

Health care services (other than hospitals)

9.0%

Individual and family services (like child care and home aids)

—

For young workers to view these as good opportunities and not get caught up in the student debt mess, unions need to aggressively organize these sectors.  In many cases, that means pushing for passage of labor laws that give workers a voice on the job.  And it also means rethinking the way unions relate to their members.  Restaurant worker unions need to be structured differently to be effective.  As do in-home attendant unions.

But there is room for hope.  Earlier this month, 12,000 home care workers voted to join the Missouri Home Care Union (a joint union of AFSCME and SEIU) – creating better conditions for the elderly and persons with disabilities that these attendants take care of, and better working conditions for the workers.

Industry

Percent of New Jobs Held by Union Members

Restaurants and other food services

6.0%

Health care services (other than hospitals)

9.0%

Individual and family services (like child care and home aids)

—

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Future Occupations for Young Workers

19 May

Following up on the recent debate on the value of college education, the lack of vocational training opportunities, and the low salaries of many of these fast-growing occupations, it might be good to list the occupations with the largest projected growth (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics):

Occupation Median Wage Needed Training/Education
Registered Nurse >51,540 Associate Degree
Home Health Aide <21,590 Short-term on-the-job training
Customer Service 21,590 – 32,380 Moderate-term on-the-job training
Fast Food Workers <21,590 Short-term on-the-job training
Personal and Home Care Aide <21,590 Short-term on-the-job training
Retail Sales <21,590 Short-term on-the-job training
Office Clerk 21,590 – 32,380 Short-term on-the-job training
Accountant >51,540 Bachelor’s Degree
Nursing Aide 21,590 – 32,380 Post-secondary Vocational Award
Post-secondary Teachers >51,540 Doctoral Degree
Construction workers 21,590 – 32,380 Moderate-term on-the-job training
Elementary School Teachers 32,390 – 51,530 Bachelor’s Degree
Truck Drivers 32,390 – 51,530 Short-term on-the-job training
Landscaping Workers 21,590 – 32,380 Short-term on-the-job training
Bookkeeping 32,390 – 51,530 Moderate-term on-the-job training
Administrative Assistants 32,390 – 51,530 Work Experience
Management Analysts >51,540 Bachelor’s Degree plus Work Experience
Computer Software Engineers >51,540 Bachelor’s Degree
Receptionists 21,590 – 32,380 Short-term on-the-job training
Carpenters 32,390 – 51,530 Long-term on-the-job training
Medical Assistants 21,590 – 32,380 Moderate-term on-the-job training
First-Line Supervisors of Office Workers 32,390 – 51,530 Work Experience
Network Systems Analysts >51,540 Bachelor’s Degree
Licensed Practical Nurses 32,390 – 51,530 Post-secondary Vocational Award
Security Guards 21,590 – 32,380 Short-term on-the-job training
Waiters and Waitresses <21,590 Short-term on-the-job training
Maintenance and Repair Workers 32,390 – 51,530 Moderate-term on-the-job training
Physicians and Surgeons >51,540 Professional Degree
Child Care Workers <21,590 Short-term on-the-job training
Teacher Assistants 21,590 – 32,380 Short-term on-the-job training

What is striking is that, yes, many of these professions do not require a college education.  But, they do require on-the-job training – training that is hard to come by and hard to afford if unpaid or under-paid.  Additionally, once you complete the training, many of these positions are low-paying.  Obviously, occupations that require additional education pay better – and, maybe, that’s morally right.  However, how can we reasonable expect to steer young people into these fast growing occupations unless we make them more attractive and more reasonable?  How can you afford a family as a child care worker?

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Raise the Wages of Non-College Youth

18 May

Yesterday, Young Workers Movement posted on David Leonhardt’s analysis of the value of college – why students who probably shouldn’t go to college do.  But the answer lies between that and the original argument posed in the New York Times’ Week in Review “Plan B – Skip College“, which argued that college isn’t for everyone.  In fact, the fastest-growing professions require vocational training more than a four-year bachelors degree:

College degrees are simply not necessary for many jobs. Of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelor’s degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Among the top 10 growing job categories, two require college degrees: accounting (a bachelor’s) and postsecondary teachers (a doctorate). But this growth is expected to be dwarfed by the need for registered nurses, home health aides, customer service representatives and store clerks. None of those jobs require a bachelor’s degree.

However, the article falters when it argues that those who drop out of college do so because they are not smart enough or devoted enough to get by.  Many are dropping out because they are feeling the pressure of student loans and feel the need to get into the labor market earlier to begin paying some of that money back.  The student debt burden can be devastating to those who do not make it through, but guidance counselors shouldn’t be telling low-performing students not to go to college because of that.

Instead, high school guidance counselors need to do a better job of advertising the fast-growing careers that require vocational schooling or certificate attainment – as some economists have argued.  To do this we first need to strengthen these programs that have been sucked up into the “for-profit” higher education model (think of all those high-tech vocational training programs advertising on tv.)

But, more fundamentally, we need to make sure that the jobs young people get after completing these programs are good paying jobs.  Returning to David Leonhardt’s argument, you cannot steer young people away from college unless you reduce the earnings gap between those with a college education and those without.  The best way to raise the floor, of course, is through a more robust union movement.

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