I want to start off by saying this is a response to the growing dissatisfaction and the sense of hopelessness in the job hunt for younger adults, and the growing competency crisis in many industries.
I believe there are two great flaws with the education to workforce pipeline in America;
1.) I believe, intuitively, that it is extremely hard for kids out of high school to determine which career path to take when K-12 education teaches them that all studies are worth equal amounts of their time. Public education puts very little emphasis on topics that play into individual strength or interests. This is how people end up believing gender studies is as valuable as a study as architecture or robotics.
2.) Upon entering the workforce, the main thing employers want in hiring is experience, even for entry level jobs. This makes it incredibly difficult for even highly motivated people to break into industries because of the obvious issue at hand; how are people meant to have experience lined up for their first job?
3.) Many industries are entering a competency crisis. This is likely due to new workers not being taught skills by veterans in their respective industries, but instead from people who are life-long academics. There is practical knowledge lost very frequently because there is no opportunity to teach it; educational institutions focus mainly on theory, not practical implementation.
I believe the solution to all mentioned issues is investing more in programs that aim to connect interested individuals directly to industries they excell or have strong interest in. As opposed to what is already proposed by many as government-funded college education, this program aims to tie the value of government-assisted education to the job market rather than treating all education equally. Economically speaking, the investment should flow right back into the economy by stimulating the job market instead of being put into a potentially stagnant/useless degree. Here’s how:
We should provide monetary assistance for companies training employees that strengthen their industry, particularly industries with professionals that require a lot of training, or operating in high levels of expertise (Ie. A gourmet restaurant hiring chefs hiring chefs can apply, McDonald’s cannot.) This is important because the strongest deterrent for companies hiring inexperienced workers is the financial investment required to train them, and monetary assistance should lighten this load considerably.
These programs would allow companies to open their doors to people young or old to allow them to acquire experience at real companies. Put simply, apprenticeships. These programs would give companies an allotted budget to allow them to hire apprentices.
Apprentices would not selected by the company, but are instead assigned via these programs, so disadvantaged individuals can still have access to these apprenticeships. However, applicants must still be able to exhibit sufficient relevant knowledge or skill in an industry to apply – after all someone who doesn’t know what a polygon is shouldn’t be eligible for an internship at a 3D graphics company, and someone who doesn’t know what caulk is shouldn’t be eligible for a construction internship.
To dissuade companies from abusing such a system for cheap labor, measures must be taken. I propose an additional grant offered for full employment at the end of the apprenticeship – rewards work better than penalties.
For instance, imagine a film studio has an apprentice for six months. For the duration of the apprenticeship, this program pays half of the apprentice’s wage. After the apprenticeship ends, the studio may continue to employ the worker, but must pay their entire wage. An additional six months later (the length of the original apprenticeship) if the employee is still employed by the company, the company is offered an additional grant equal to the first. This effectively covers the entire apprenticeship under the condition that the company is intending to fully employ their apprentices. Should the apprentice’s employment be terminated before this period, the studio forfeits their second grant.
This program should ideally create a system in which industries are encouraged to bring in fresh faces by greatly reducing financial risk posed to them. Additionally, I think it would have incredible potential to pass industry knowledge from older generations to younger generations – knowledge which is quickly being lost due to middlemen who work strictly in theory.
Posted this at 4AM, tired but wanted to get the idea out. Thanks for your time and your patience in any unclear language I’ve used.