Additional education for jobless tarnished

Date: Sunday, October 06, 2002 3:37 PM

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Somebody should tell Michael Center, 51, a former furniture factory worker
in North Carolina, that even if he did complete his computer-networking
studies it wouldn't matter. If any of those jobs haven't been taken by H-1Bs
they surely will be outsourced. These ex-factory workers are being fed the
same propaganda that unemployed computer/IT professionals hear all the time:
"There is a massive shortage of [fill in the blank]. These jobless workers
need to get training to compete in the global marketplace."

Companies aren't going to hire a 51 year old computer technician no matter
how much training he gets. That's the tarnished reality that this article
should have discussed but didn't.

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=RETRAINING-10-02-02&cat=FF

Additional education for jobless tarnished by reality
By KARIN RIVES and JOSEPH NEFF
Raleigh News & Observer
October 02, 2002

- Tear down trade barriers and export low-paying factory jobs to countries
that can better use them. Then train Americans for new and better
opportunities that arrive with an expanding global economy.

In many factory towns, this national economic strategy sounds more like a
cruel joke.

Worker-retraining programs have long been the primary remedy for
trade-related layoffs, but a quick look at the numbers shows they often miss
their target.

To begin with, few workers enroll in the programs. For example, only
one-fifth - or 10,588 - of the approximately 49,000 North Carolinians
displaced by trade-related layoffs since 1998, when the state began keeping
count, had entered training as of early this year. And many more workers who
were not included in the official statistics were caught in job cuts that
occurred because of foreign competition or trade.

Of the 10,000-plus workers who decided to return to the classroom, 15
percent did not complete their courses, records from the state Employment
Security Commission show. Another study found that less than one-quarter of
those who completed retraining programs landed the kind of jobs they trained
for.

Many who do enroll are older workers with limited education, making them
difficult prospects for retraining. Thirteen percent did not finish high
school, and 60 percent have a diploma but went no further. Forty-four
percent are over age 45.

Rather than bringing new opportunities, globalization has left many of those
workers - two-thirds of whom are women - stuck in unemployment,
underemployment or menial jobs.

"You tell me what you can do with a 50-year-old textile worker with an
eighth-grade education who makes $9 an hour, has four weeks' vacation and
good benefits," said Harris Raynor, the Atlanta-based regional director for
the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees.

"When you pull the rug out from under him, what alternative does he have?
Where are all the jobs that these people can move into? They're going to the
guy who gives you the cart and tells you, 'Hello, and welcome to Wal-Mart.'
"

So far, Evelyn Blow, 47, hasn't even been able to secure a spot at Wal-Mart.

After sewing clothes in Beaufort County factories since she dropped out of
high school at 16, she lost her job at Hampton Industries in Washington,
N.C., nearly two years ago. But returning to the classroom proved difficult.
Blow was forced to quit without her high school equivalency diploma when her
tuition benefits expired after six months.

Today, she's hunting for a job in a county with a 9 percent unemployment
rate, calling on every plant and retail store she can think of. They all
tell her to come back with a high school diploma, or when the economy picks
up. In the meantime, Blow is collecting what's left of her unemployment
insurance and cutting back on spending, thankful that her husband, a
trucker, still has a job.

"I try not to sit around and dwell on it," Blow said. "I know the Lord is
going to make a way for me."

Throughout the state, understaffed state agencies and overburdened community
colleges have the nearly impossible task of steering thousands of workers
into a job market that has little use for middle-age, under-educated, former
factory employees.

Some college officials have adjusted by lowering their expectations.

"If they can stay in the area with their family, even if they're not
successful finding a job in the field that they trained in, I still consider
it a success," said Clay Carter, who coordinates programs for trade-affected
workers at Beaufort Community College.

More than 800 of the 10,000-plus North Carolina workers in retraining
programs since 1998 have enrolled in classes on information systems,
software programming or other computer-related jobs, even though few of the
state's small towns and rural areas have such businesses.

Structural problems hamper the training programs' effectiveness as well.
Most associate degrees at community colleges require two years of study, but
the federal government provides only 18 months of unemployment and tuition
benefits to most trade-affected workers.

Michael Center, 51, a former furniture factory worker in Hickory, received
his last government check in June and worries that he might have to drop his
computer-networking studies just one semester shy of graduation. A
straight-A student, Center is applying for any job he can think of in a
region where unemployment has more than quadrupled in the past two years.

"I'm trying everything - bartending, security guard jobs, heat and air
conditioning - and nobody wants to even talk to me," Center said. "It's a
waste of government money to get me this close and not let me get my degree.
One more semester and that could pretty well get me where I need to be."

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