Did you ever have one of those mornings when your alarm clock was your worst enemy? It is going off and all you can do is think about sleeping a little longer. If it has one, you are repeatedly hitting the snooze button, trying to make the reality of morning go away. You know that one more tap on the snooze button will make you late for work.
On Wednesday, September 24, 2014 Frank Jordans of the Associated Press set off the alarm clocks of the industrialized world. He wrote an article “German Employers Struggle to Find Apprentices”. The tag line for the article read “More Young People Choose Education over Vocational Training”.
The article contained some alarming statistics, such as:
There are 120,000 vacant apprenticeships in Germany
This is an increase of over 14,500 in the last year
The problem is partly caused by Germany’s strong economy and low birth rate, resulting in demand for new apprentices outstripping the number who enter the workforce each year. Clearly the number of openings in the skilled trades are growing and will continue to grow at an accelerated pace.
What were some of the proposed solutions? One was a TV commercial that portrayed craftspeople as attractive super-heroes in a bid to raise the profile of apprenticeships among young people who would otherwise go to university.
I could already see a story arc of the Super Electrician and the Super Mechanic against the arch enemy “The Asset Destroyer”! The possible number spin off series would be unimaginable. I can already see people lining up to see this one.
However, the problem is not really humorous. It is very real and very serious. Germany is the most apprentice friendly country in the world. If they are having growing problem with new apprentices entering the skilled trades, then every industrialized country in the world will also be experiencing it.
In the United States, it is not uncommon for recruiters to pay signing bonuses to highly skilled technical employees. The demographics show that this problem is only going to worsen in the next few years as the “baby-boomers” continue to retire. Edward Gordon’s book “The 2010 Meltdown” provides a final quote. He said “If each of us is not willing to invest something in gradual, systemic changes now, we will all pay very dearly 10 to 20 years from now”. It has been 11 years since that was written.
It is more than being late for work. It is now about companies being able to survive the next decade.
The alarm clock has gone off – How long can we continue to hit the “snooze” button?
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