CNN Money says there aren't any skilled workers in Northeast Indiana [View all]
CJR's Ryan Chittum busts the myth and the associated talking points once again.
The headline reads Northeast Indiana: Hundreds of factory jobs go unfilled. Theres the counterintuitive top that talks about how even in a recession with high unemployment, manufacturers cant fill their openings.
Then theres the head of the Indiana Chamber of Commerces workforce development programthese types of sources are almost always in these stories and theyre often the flacks behind themwho talks about all the druggies and welfare bums filling out applications:
Applicants are failing drug tests, she said. Some apply and then decide they want to wait until their unemployment benefit runs out before taking a factory job.
That quote gets at a big hole in this story: Theres zero discussion of what kind of wages these supposedly unfillable jobs actually pay. Indiana unemployment benefits top out at $390 a week (pre-tax), and they only last six months. Thats the equivalent of a less-than-$10-an-hour job. In other words, if lots people are sitting home on the dole rather than taking jobs, as the Chamber of Commerce would have us believe, these manufacturing jobs probably arent paying that much more.
Full post:
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/cnnmoney_cant_find_the_workers.php?page=all