Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.
Walter P. Paepcke, Aspen Institute Co-Founder
Aspen Institute
Huffington Post: Manufacturing Skills Shortages and the Untapped Resource
March 11, 2014
Manufacturers regularly and consistently report a shortage of skilled and semi-skilled workers for their firms. Shortages are most pronounced for skilled production workers, scientists and engineers, and least evident for unskilled production workers. Unemployment in this sector is already below the national average (5.6 percent versus 6.5 percent) but the U.S. Department of Labor reports that there are about 300,000 job openings in manufacturing. Estimates based on employer surveys tend to be higher than this figure. As U.S. manufacturing becomes increasingly sophisticated and demands higher levels of education and basic science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM.) skills, the performance of our education system in responding to existing and projected future shortages remains weak by most measures. Yet one untapped resource to address the problem remains in plain view: women are increasingly outperforming men in acquiring advanced skills, but are under-represented in both the manufacturing workforce and in the specialized STEM. fields most in demand in today’s industrial economy.
