As part of our annual predictions for 2013, we said that "Jobs,unemployment, and recruiting and the need for specially-trained employees forspecific industries will be a big story."
Turns out the Boston Globe agrees with us. The Globe's business editor made "Demand rockets for visas to bring in foreign workers" its lead business story today in the print edition. (You can find the article with its online headline: "H-1B visas predicted to go fast.")
Although unemployment continues to decline, and the rate is still a relatively high 7.6%, the story is that businesses, especially biotechs, continue to have trouble finding skilled employees.
This need for highly skilled employees turns into an immigration and an education story. I had lunch with a friend yesterday who is discouraged that so many schools in disadvantaged communities are not able to provide their students with the education they need to succeed in today's economy. I generally stay away from politics on this blog but we clearly need to make sure our
schools produce qualified engineers because as a country, we can't stay
competitive if we need to recruit from other countries.
1 comment:
I agree, Norman! And I don't believe its only schools in disadvantage d communities, public schools have been forced to cut so much from their budgets and they have many unfunded mandates that eat up those dollars that could be spent on math, tech, bio programs and labs! We need to change education. In our country so we can work and compete in the 21st century!
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