America's Skills Gap

[Jermyn Davidson]

Pritzker says the problem is not lack of jobs. “Since 2009, we’ve created 877,000 manufacturing jobs in this country. And these are not the manufacturing jobs of 25 years ago. These are technical jobs; they often require some kind of computer programming, computer literacy. And these are jobs that have great longevity and are very much associated with innovation of what’s going on in our economy.” Apprenticeships have declined by 40 percent in the last 10 years, and the Obama administration is encouraging companies to do more in this area. “CVS, for example, has just agreed to double the number of apprenticeships in their pharmacy and their medical units — from, I think, 1,500 to 3,000. Campbell’s Soup is doing an apprenticeship program for their production technicians,” says Pritzker. “They know it creates a loyal employee; they know it creates a successful employee.”

http://news.yahoo.com/u-s-secretary-...184604831.html