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(MyFox Twin Cities) Obvious Problem: Minnesota needs manufacturing workers bad, but since it's flyover country and there may not be an Apple store for 100 miles, OWS protesters need not bother   (myfoxtwincities.com) divider line 248
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9059 clicks; posted to Main » on 24 Oct 2011 at 7:52 PM   |  Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»   |    Get this fabulous T-Shirt and impress the methane out of your friends! shirt it!



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2011-10-24 03:34:16 PM
We have both Apple stores and OWS here subtard.
 
2011-10-24 03:52:12 PM
A shortage of skilled workers:

"State manufacturers have openings, but Minnesotans who are looking for work often don't have the right skills to fill them," said Mark Phillips, Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development commissioner. "

I'm trying to understand how this equates to OWS supporters avoiding moving to Minnesota for jobs they likely do not qualify to fill.
 
2011-10-24 03:54:53 PM
Wouldn't it be more helpful if some of these skills were enumerated?
 
2011-10-24 03:59:16 PM
I propose a 3 point plan to address this problem.

1. Tax cuts for job creators.
2. Reduce the budget for education.
3. Profit.
 
2011-10-24 04:01:16 PM
In our area Crown Lift Truck Corporation is needing to hire dozens of people. Floor jobs start at 14+ an hour. They also need about 70 people with various technical skills (don't know the salary range for these), and cannot get enough applicants to fill the positions.
 
2011-10-24 04:07:02 PM
Need a job but don't have the requisite skills?

Just wait until someone comes and trains you.
 
2011-10-24 04:19:36 PM
R.A.Danny: Wouldn't it be more helpful if some of these skills were enumerated?

1. Familiarity with power washing equipment.
2. Prior work with hog anuses.
3. Must own car.
 
2011-10-24 04:39:11 PM
I'll pay someone $15 an hour to file/make folders/update spreadsheets/shred documents/answer phones.
 
2011-10-24 04:58:18 PM
I'm sure all those OWS protestors know how to operate CNC machines and whatnot. They're just too lazy and elitist to move to where the jobs are! Silly protestors.
 
2011-10-24 06:08:33 PM
Kasira: I'm sure all those OWS protestors know how to operate CNC machines and whatnot. They're just too lazy and elitist to move to where the jobs are! Silly protestors.

Listen. the OWS protestors don't need your sass. They are just a squirrel trying to get a nut to move your butt.
 
2011-10-24 06:43:51 PM
Need better school-to-work, mentoring, trade/craft programs starting in high school.
 
2011-10-24 07:39:47 PM
iPad/apple reference in the HEADLINE!

*chug*
*chug*

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!
 
2011-10-24 07:50:53 PM
I think I know where to find some out of work manufacturing people in MinnesotaLink (new window)

/just a thought
 
2011-10-24 07:54:32 PM
Minnesota is nirvana for the OWS types. I personally live in granola central (SE Minneapolis). We are simultaneously the hippy and hipster capital of the world (they only ever meet at the farmer's market).

We also have a cold climate and highly diversified technology, manufacturing, and service economy. We usually have a shortage of workers.
 
2011-10-24 07:54:41 PM
How many skilled worker shortage stories are we going to get before we start to do something about it?

Seriously, it seems like we are about to reach a point where we could allocate a whole bunch of money to infrastructure upgrades, but we won't have anyone that can actually do the work!
 
2011-10-24 07:56:21 PM
RaceDTruck: I think I know where to find some out of work manufacturing people in MinnesotaLink (new window)

/just a thought


I would have thought they had moved to North Dakota and that oil pipeline work.
 
2011-10-24 07:56:22 PM
tallguywithglasseson: Need better school-to-work, mentoring, trade/craft programs starting in high school.

THIS! The company I work for is hiring for welders/fitters/mechanics and more in NC and TN, but are having problems finding enough qualified people who can also pass the drug tests and background checks required by the companies we work for.

We did just start talks with various local community colleges for help with a job training program. More companies need to step up and do the same.

/if your a qualified welder/fitter etc.. or know one - check craigslist - we've got ads all over the southeast
 
2011-10-24 07:56:26 PM
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing jobs?
 
2011-10-24 07:57:46 PM
What ever happened to find-smart-hard-working-folks-and-train-them?
 
2011-10-24 07:58:20 PM
Who do I blame? High school counselors.

It's like their job to shove people off into college even when it may not be the right choice for them.

ALL I wanted to do was take a welding vocational class. I got denied at every turn because I was "smart". I was going to be an engineer. Why would an engineer ever need to learn to weld? Yes I'm an engineer, yes I do lots of my own work on my car and stuff. But there isn't a weekend that goes by where I think "wow, learning to weld would have been a waste of my senior year".

The guys on Howe & Howe tech are my idols.
 
2011-10-24 07:58:51 PM
Another trolling flame thread spewing fire at the growing success of the OWS protests and their counterparts across the world.
 
2011-10-24 07:58:59 PM
"Officials say the lack of skilled manufacturing workers in key positions could affect economic growth if it prevents Minnesota companies from increasing production to meet customer needs."

You mean all the customers who aren't buying anything anyway?
 
2011-10-24 07:59:23 PM
Companies no longer do on the job training, or pay for new hires to get certified in whatever skills are required?
 
2011-10-24 08:00:19 PM
ShawnDoc: Companies no longer do on the job training, or pay for new hires to get certified in whatever skills are required?

nope. they'd rather outsource to china then complain that the US education system failed because of teacher unions.
 
2011-10-24 08:00:47 PM
R.A.Danny: Wouldn't it be more helpful if some of these skills were enumerated?

That would take away from their ability to complain that the OWS are just a bunch of dirty hippies.
 
2011-10-24 08:01:19 PM
GrooveMonkeyZero: What ever happened to find-smart-hard-working-folks-and-train-them?

Training and basic research aren't good for short-term stockholders, so it doesn't happen.
 
2011-10-24 08:01:24 PM
Dig 12 more lakes and it'll be lake Minnesota.
 
2011-10-24 08:01:29 PM
Usually these "skills" are taught in community colleges around here as one year certificates, whether it's CNC or biotech production. Ever had a drug conviction? No financial aid for you, including loans. That right there knocks a lot of people out. The whole "going to college" thing also seems to typically be a huge turn-off for manufacturing workers; I am surrounded by neighbors who refuse to reskill if it means sitting in a classroom or college lab. So they sit around various bars in town and biatch about how the government won't give them their old jobs back.
 
2011-10-24 08:02:54 PM
Linger: tallguywithglasseson: Need better school-to-work, mentoring, trade/craft programs starting in high school.

THIS! The company I work for is hiring for welders/fitters/mechanics and more in NC and TN, but are having problems finding enough qualified people who can also pass the drug tests and background checks required by the companies we work for.

We did just start talks with various local community colleges for help with a job training program. More companies need to step up and do the same.

/if your a qualified welder/fitter etc.. or know one - check craigslist - we've got ads all over the southeast


sounds good. sign me up. i'm a hard worker, never call in, and always show up early. but i'm still going to go home at the end of the day and burn one whether you like it or not.
 
2011-10-24 08:07:49 PM
GrooveMonkeyZero: What ever happened to find-smart-hard-working-folks-and-train-them?

The smart folks deserve more money than the companies are willing to pay them.

/saw an ad for a commercial laundry delivery service job
//$0.50 an hour above minimum wage
///required a bachelors degree "or equivalent experience"
////"Boo hoo we can't find workers."
 
2011-10-24 08:07:53 PM
Cake Hunter: R.A.Danny: Wouldn't it be more helpful if some of these skills were enumerated?

1. Familiarity with power washing equipment.
2. Prior work with hog anuses.
3. Must own car.


Are goat amuses relevant enough? Also..what kind of car?
 
2011-10-24 08:09:35 PM
Lots of people posting job opportunities, any in the MD area? Not exactly in my budget to move right now, and I've been job hunting for months around here. Clean background, clean drug screen, 6 years in the military. Unfortunately, being an infantryman doesn't exactly qualify you to do much other than security guard.
 
2011-10-24 08:10:21 PM
BolloxReader: Usually these "skills" are taught in community colleges around here as one year certificates, whether it's CNC or biotech production. Ever had a drug conviction? No financial aid for you, including loans. That right there knocks a lot of people out. The whole "going to college" thing also seems to typically be a huge turn-off for manufacturing workers; I am surrounded by neighbors who refuse to reskill if it means sitting in a classroom or college lab. So they sit around various bars in town and biatch about how the government won't give them their old jobs back.

this!

i watched many of my co workers get picked off in the downsizings my company went thru. darn near every one of them refused to learn other jobs to make themselves more valueable. the boss even told every one they were rated by a number of things,mainly the ability to do different things. how you ranked determined who got cut when the bean counters declared a cut must be made.
 
2011-10-24 08:11:10 PM
Petulant Dwarf: Another trolling flame thread spewing fire at the growing success of the OWS protests and their counterparts across the world.

Don't sweat it, man. OWS has basically won at this point. It's game over for all those fat cats. Victory is ours! The letter saying my student loans are forgiven should be coming any day now.
 
2011-10-24 08:11:25 PM
What's amusing a goat have to do with hog butt holes. You lost me Captain Fat Finger.
 
2011-10-24 08:12:19 PM
Nuclear Monk: Cake Hunter: R.A.Danny: Wouldn't it be more helpful if some of these skills were enumerated?

1. Familiarity with power washing equipment.
2. Prior work with hog anuses.
3. Must own car.

Are goat amuses relevant enough? Also..what kind of car?


Try that again..

What's amusing a goat have to do with hog butt holes. You lost me Captain Fat Finger
 
2011-10-24 08:13:19 PM
Mike Rowe did a speech at TED about the culture's anti-work ethic. Mostly we've lowered the honor that comes with a hard day's work. I grew up in Michigan, a manufacturing state, and even there was a strain of people disparaging skilled labor for college.

My high school had turned the annex, formerly the location for shop classes, into more classrooms and shipped all the courses far away to one of the old middle school (all high school in the district did the same). You'd have to pick which half of your day you wanted to spend being bussed out there. They had also decided that was the same school to ship the troublemakers into special classes.

When you warehouse the troubled kids in the same place for auto, construction, wood and metal shop, you send a signal to the skilled craft kids of what their skills mean to society.
 
2011-10-24 08:16:20 PM
And here I am, an unemployed Minnesotan wanting a job, waiting for callbacks.
I am really hating when they put in the job requirements that you have 5 years of experience for a product that has only been out for 3 and disqualify you when you point that out.

Anyone need an IT person or a chemist?
 
2011-10-24 08:17:58 PM
Apple reference?

You must say that I'm young, you must say I'm unlearned
 
2011-10-24 08:18:01 PM
Any jobs for floggers on the Tri masted schooner with passing gear?
 
2011-10-24 08:18:29 PM
In our area Crown Lift Truck Corporation is needing to hire dozens of people. Floor jobs start at 14+ an hour. They also need about 70 people with various technical skills (don't know the salary range for these), and cannot get enough applicants to fill the positions.

So train them. Or do you expect the public sector to do that for you?

I know dozens of people who can't get an interview because they're "overqualified" -- which is a technical term for "you're older than me" or "you have more experience than me."
 
2011-10-24 08:19:05 PM
nopokerface: Need a job but don't have the requisite skills?

Just wait until someone comes and trains you.


THIS. I work in a corporate IT and am always learning new skills on my own time and my own dime. COBOL was never going to be around forever, and neither will Java/.NET. The best employee I've ever had taught himself coding without a single day in college. So get off your asses and teach yourself a useful skill so you can quit whining and then all our jobs aren't sent overseas due to a lack of candidates.

On the flip side -- the playing field for US workers will never be level until all outsourced jobs are held to the same level of quality and safety that the ones in the US are. Do you think Chinese manufacturing plants worry about OSHA? This is a perfect place to institute some tariffs or other protectionist fees...but our government is in bed too tightly with corporate interests to make that happen. Capitalism is not inherently bad...anyone that says that just flat-out does not know what they are talking about. But the government has to be able to regulate businesses properly in order for it to not get out of whack. This bastardized version of both that is going on now is causing the rise of both the Tea Party and the OWS for a reason.
 
2011-10-24 08:19:32 PM
chestylaruegal: I am really hating when they put in the job requirements that you have 5 years of experience for a product that has only been out for 3 and disqualify you when you point that out.

when I see shiat like that I just blatantly lie and say that yes, I've been using for over 5 years, then dare them to call me on it.

drives the HR folks nuts. some of them KNOW they made up a bullshiat requirement but they can't call me out on it without admitting they were bullshiatting in the first place.
 
2011-10-24 08:19:44 PM
darkscout: Who do I blame? High school counselors.

It's like their job to shove people off into college even when it may not be the right choice for them.

ALL I wanted to do was take a welding vocational class. I got denied at every turn because I was "smart". I was going to be an engineer. Why would an engineer ever need to learn to weld? Yes I'm an engineer, yes I do lots of my own work on my car and stuff. But there isn't a weekend that goes by where I think "wow, learning to weld would have been a waste of my senior year".

The guys on Howe & Howe tech are my idols.


Try going to a high school in an agricultural area.
"We'll sign you up for Agricultural Sciences, how's that?"
"What happened to computer science, like you promised?"
"Oh, you were the only student for that, so we canceled it. Besides, you won't need it working on a farm."
"What the hell are you talking about? I'm not going to work on a farm!"
"There's no other jobs in this area, and never will be."
"I don't plan to stay here!!!"

Yeah, high school sucked for me in a different way than for most.
 
2011-10-24 08:19:53 PM
Omnivorous: I know dozens of people who can't get an interview because they're "overqualified" -- which is a technical term for "you're older than me" or "you have more experience than me."

Or "You'll actually retire with a pension before we can suck all the life out of you and fire you."
 
2011-10-24 08:23:16 PM
Kasira: I'm sure all those OWS protestors know how to operate CNC machines and whatnot. They're just too lazy and elitist to move to where the jobs are! Silly protestors.

You either evolve with the market, or remain jobless. That's how capitalism works.

A good number of these OWS protesters are young and can still learn new jobs. CNC operations and other forms of industrial/manufacturing employment require relatively little time investment when it comes to education compared to the college degrees most of them already have. There's really no excuse for them NOT to give it their best shot, if they can. If they can't, then it's a different ballgame, but I don't think Subby is too far off in his/her assertion that at least some of these protesters won't take perfectly good jobs just because it doesn't fit their aura or whatever. I'm 20 and go to a major state university. Those people ARE out there, and a lot of them are within 6-7 years of my age.

We've gotten employment confused with fulfillment. The two go hand-in-hand to an extent, but they're not completely intertwined. An unemployed person who can't afford to enjoy life would be far more fulfilled with a job they don't like and some pay than no job and no pay. You can tell just how desperate people are by how willing they are to sacrifice a few wants for pressing needs. During the Great Depression, people would travel hundreds of miles any way they could (even on foot) just because of a rumor of a job. When they got there, they would sometimes face the challenge of adapting their skill sets to the task they were hired to do, but being sore from hard labor beat being dead from starvation. Some OWS protesters have tried everything, but I have a hard time believing that ALL of them are at the end of their rope and think that drastic corporate change is the only way to solve their problems. Those people need to get over the fact that the jobs out there don't exactly fit them and apply.
 
2011-10-24 08:24:09 PM
Ed Willy: Mike Rowe did a speech at TED about the culture's anti-work ethic. Mostly we've lowered the honor that comes with a hard day's work. I grew up in Michigan, a manufacturing state, and even there was a strain of people disparaging skilled labor for college.

My high school had turned the annex, formerly the location for shop classes, into more classrooms and shipped all the courses far away to one of the old middle school (all high school in the district did the same). You'd have to pick which half of your day you wanted to spend being bussed out there. They had also decided that was the same school to ship the troublemakers into special classes.

When you warehouse the troubled kids in the same place for auto, construction, wood and metal shop, you send a signal to the skilled craft kids of what their skills mean to society.


The need for "skilled trades" in manufacturing in 2011 is zero. The need for intelligent people able to run extremely complicated and expensive CNC equipment is high. The guys failing into shop class don't cut it.

As far as the "cultural anti-work ethic" goes, that's a load of horseshiat. Almost everywhere you go in this country the only thing that matters is how hard you're working. Just look at the deluded idiots over on the the53.tumblr.com (new window) bragging about working two or more jobs just to put food on the table as if being royally screwed over is something of which to be proud.

There's no honor in being able to brag about being more miserable than the next guy.
 
2011-10-24 08:24:37 PM
Tartan69: THIS. I work in a corporate IT and am always learning new skills on my own time and my own dime. COBOL was never going to be around forever, and neither will Java/.NET. The best employee I've ever had taught himself coding without a single day in college. So get off your asses and teach yourself a useful skill so you can quit whining and then all our jobs aren't sent overseas due to a lack of candidates..

problem is that my company wants us IT geeks to stop costing them so much money. we're told to do more with less and that if we don't produce then they'll outsource us. of course they're going to outsource us no matter what we do anyways so we're all looking for new jobs when the big boss isn't watching.

speaking of which, anyone in the market for a mildly insane but brilliant systems analyst with over 15 years experience with every enterprise OS and back office application ever used in a corporate environement, lemme know. if the price is right, i'm yours. not joking either...its getting sad out there.
 
2011-10-24 08:25:51 PM
Omnivorous: I know dozens of people who can't get an interview because they're "overqualified" -- which is a technical term for "you're older than me" or "you have more experience than me."

My mother spent over a year looking for jobs and was disqualified for this very reason. She had a goal to apply to five jobs per week and to interview weekly if possible. She drove all over the state. She had a criminal justice, sociology, and English degrees. (She picked up the sociology degree as she went back to school to finish her criminal justice degree and with transfer credits picked up sociology).

She finally gave up, moved to another state and was hired for a position that she was actually "overqualified" for but she worked there for several years.

/People with degrees need to eat too!
 
2011-10-24 08:29:49 PM
This thread is awesome. Especially the part about training for hog enemas.

By the way, if you object to Chinese regulations, do you seriously think an iPad would be available for $499 if the Chinese version of OSHA were like the U.S.? Also, I bet if you ask an average Chinese worker, that factory beats the shiat out of 30 million dying in a famine under Mao Tse Tung.

Chinese standards of living have soared, but as consumers we would ideally be able to identify products manufactured in sweatshops to avoid them. the problem is that there are so many parts manufactured in so many factories taht it's nearly impossible to know.
 
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