In 1994, concerned about the effects this neglect was having on poor children, U.S. President Bill Clinton and his labor secretary, Robert Reich, decided to take action. The administration proposed legislation, which Congress passed as the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, that provided federal funds to encourage states and counties to design joint programs between businesses and high schools and businesses and community colleges to allow students to add on-the-job experience to their classroom learning.
According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) quarterly report on small businesses, 48 percent of employers reported that their job openings could not be filled. Small businesses have reported to NFIB that 40 percent of them have skilled labor openings, and 27 percent have unskilled labor openings. When looking at the construction small business industry, they have reported that 51 percent of their job openings are for skilled labor, and 66 percent have said that they have little to no workers applying. As noted earlier, the reskilling crisis continues, and millions of Americans will need to be reskilled or trained to fill the jobs that exist today. Employers are struggling to find employees that meet the skills required to fulfill the job, in addition to a lack of willingness among many workers to return to work post-pandemic. Of the 93 percent of small businesses with open positions, 57 percent of employers have said they have little to no job applicants who can fill these jobs (NFIB, 2021). As worker shortages continue to plague businesses, employers are challenged to find ways to attract qualified workers. Among these small businesses, the two most cited concerns are labor costs and labor quality, with 9 percent and 26 percent, respectively, reporting this as their top business concern (NFIB, 2021). For further evidence, figure 1 indicates the labor force participation rate was only 61.7 percent in July, remaining stubbornly below the level of 63.3 percent it achieved before the pandemic.
Reskilling America: Learning to Labor in the Twenty-First Century
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The human capital theory emphasizes the importance of education and training to improve worker skills and productivity in the dynamic global knowledge economy and 21st-century capitalism. In Asia, development assistance modalities and contents required for human capital development, such as higher education projects and skill development projects, are implemented by emerging Asian donors alone and through their collaboration with international counterparts. According to the Asian experience, there are four key points. First, the various Chinese, Indian, and other Asian development experiences affirm that different developing countries require different combinations of basic and high skills in the 21st century. Accordingly, the distribution and mobilization of official development assistance (ODA) in human capital development must depend on culturally and contextually specific assistance projects designed for different developing countries. Second, all stakeholders in the skill ecosystem, which includes donors, recipient governments, education institutions, firms, and individuals, must assume responsibilities for not only balancing the skill demand and supply but also sustaining positional competition in the local and global job markets. Third, the system underpinned by innovative financing from the private sector, emerging donors, as well as traditional Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) donors must focus on inclusive and sustainable economic development rather than economic accumulation and gross domestic product (GDP) growth only. Finally, higher education institutions should play a more critical and active role in providing international development assistance to empower skilled and competent individuals as change agents to work for/in, guide, and lead the skill ecosystem, which eventually will not only respond to economic demands in the short term but also promote economic transformation in the long run. 2ff7e9595c
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