美国和古巴大使馆重新开放

AS IT IS 2015-07-02 Is There a ‘Skills Gap’ in US Job Market? 美国和古巴大使馆重新开放

The United States’ job market has millions of unfilled jobs. Many of those jobs require technical skills. However, employers say many of those jobs are vacant because they cannot find people with the right skills to do the work. Labor¹ experts call this paradox² the "skills gap." A number of efforts have been launched to better understand and solve it.

Rethinking training

Nicholas Wyman wrote a book called, “Job U: How to Find Wealth and Success by Developing the Skills Companies Actually Need.” He calls the skills gap, "a labor market mismatch -- people without jobs and jobs without people."

In the United States, the cost of a traditional four-year college can be very high. U.S. colleges and universities produce many graduates every year. Yet unemployment rates among new graduates are high.

Nicholas Wyman says a combination of technical classes and on-the-job training -- an apprenticeship⁴ --would be a better choice for many people. He notes that, "An apprenticeship is where you learn from a specialist, you are provided mentoring⁵, you learn in an on the job environment, the old cliche⁶ is that you are actually paid to earn and learn."  

Mr. Wyman once served as an apprentice³ himself. He says apprenticeships are misunderstood in the United States, where "success" is often defined as attending a four-year college. But he notes that is changing as on-the-job training has spread outside traditional areas, like construction and manufacturing. He says apprenticeship possibilities are growing in some manufacturing jobs.

Mr. Wyman also says it is vital to get technical skills that are of immediate⁷ value to an employer. He adds that it is important to get transferrable skills -- those that can be used in more than one job. This is because technology and the nature of the workplace are changing at a faster rate than before.

There are questions about the definition, size, and nature of the skills gap in the labor force. Iowa State University researchers studied some of these questions recently. They examined employment, education and population information, and found the evidence of a skills gap is weak. 

Iowa State’s Liesl Eathington noted⁸ that many policymakers and employers say there is opportunity in "middle skills" areas, like machining. Yet she said the most recent recession hit some of those job areas hard. She said students should be on guard because "our economy really isn’t adding that many jobs that require the middle skills or middle educated territory."

She said employers could get more well-qualified applicants⁹ if they offered higher wages. She noted that graduates of two-year training programs still generally make less money than graduates of four-year colleges.

The question of finding the right person for the right job remains¹⁰ a difficult one. The Department of Labor says 8.7 million Americans are unemployed¹¹ and another 6.7 million can find only part-time work.

Words in This Story

vacant – adj. not occupied, open to being filled

paradox – n. a problem involving two issues or conditions that appear to oppose or compete against each other

apprenticeship – n. a job in which someone works with a more experienced person in a field and learns skills from that person

cliché – n. an overused idea or saying

vital – adj. very important

applicant(s) – n. people seeking employment

1 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

2 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

3 apprentice   

n.学徒，徒弟

参考例句：

• My son is an apprentice in a furniture maker's workshop.我的儿子在一家家具厂做学徒。
• The apprentice is not yet out of his time.这徒工还没有出徒。

4 apprenticeship   

n.学徒身份；学徒期

参考例句：

• She was in the second year of her apprenticeship as a carpenter. 她当木工学徒已是第二年了。
• He served his apprenticeship with Bob. 他跟鲍勃当学徒。

5 mentoring   

n.mentoring是一种工作关系。mentor通常是处在比mentee更高工作职位上的有影响力的人。他/她有比‘mentee’更丰富的工作经验和知识，并用心支持mentee的职业（发展）。v.（无经验之人的）有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• One of the most effective instruments for coaching and mentoring is the "role rehearsal" . 辅导和教学的最有效的手段之一是“角色排练。” 来自辞典例句
• Bell Canada called their mentoring system a buddy-buddy system. 加拿大贝尔公司称他们的训导系统是伙伴—伙伴系统。 来自互联网

6 cliche   

n./a.陈词滥调(的)；老生常谈(的)；陈腐的

参考例句：

• You should always try to avoid the use of cliche. 你应该尽量避免使用陈词滥调。
• The old cliche is certainly true:the bigger car do mean bigger profits.有句老话倒的确说得不假:车大利大。

7 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

8 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

9 applicants   

申请人，求职人( applicant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There were over 500 applicants for the job. 有500多人申请这份工作。
• He was impressed by the high calibre of applicants for the job. 求职人员出色的能力给他留下了深刻印象。

10 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

11 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。