Nuance on Skills

/ The Old Crank

When the New York Times publishes a scathing editorial against the whole notion of a skills gap, it alarms me, because so much of adult education and training advocacy has coalesced around this idea. It also alarms me because whatever the economic data tells us about the root causes of unemployment, it doesn’t take away from the fact that we still have a substantial number of people who are trying to improve their basic skills, enroll in job training programs, and/or acquire industry credentials. We wouldn’t have waiting lists for services if this wasn’t the case.

Many economists have been arguing for some time that the skills gap has not been a major cause of unemployment. But a case for investing in skills doesn’t need to be dependent on this argument. I’ve often cited an old blog post from Jared Bernstein as an example of a way to argue for skills that isn’t dependent on proof of a skills gap.

The Times piece suggests that skills gap arguments will be increasingly met with skepticism. It’s going to be important not to let that turn into an argument against investing in skills altogether.

New York Times Not Super Enthused About the Skills Gap Argument

/ The Old Crank

The New York Times Editorial Board has come down hard—and I mean really hard—on the idea that our stubbornly high unemployment rate can be blamed on a skills gap (the notion that good jobs are going unfilled due to a lack of qualified applicants). The Times calls this a “corporate fiction” designed as excuse to keep wages down and get the government to pay for training corporate America doesn’t want to pay for:

If a business really needed workers, it would pay up. That is not happening, which calls into question the existence of a skills gap as well as the urgency on the part of employers to fill their openings. Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that “recruiting intensity” — that is, business efforts to fill job openings — has been low in this recovery. Employers may be posting openings, but they are not trying all that hard to fill them, say, by increasing job ads or offering better pay packages.

Corporate executives have valuable perspectives on the economy, but they also have an interest in promoting the notion of a skills gap. They want schools and, by extension, the government to take on more of the costs of training workers that used to be covered by companies as part of on-the-job employee development. They also want more immigration, both low and high skilled, because immigrants may be willing to work for less than their American counterparts.

This editorial appeared in the Times on Saturday. What’s interesting about this is that we are just five days away from a Senate hearing on reauthorizing the Workforce Investment Act, which is the major piece of legislation that authorizes government spending on workforce training. I’ll be interested to see how some of my colleagues in the workforce development field respond to this.

Senate Immigration Bill – Amendments Submitted Related to English Proficiency

/ The Old Crank / 2 Comments

(Updated Below)

I’ve scanned the amendments submitted thus far to the Senate immigration bill (S.744) and found at least four five that pertain to English proficiency:

S.A. 1204, introduced by Sen. Inhofe (R-OK)
AKA the “English Language Unity Act of 2013’’. Would declare English the official language of the United States government.

S.A. 1205, introduced by Sen. Inhofe (R-OK)
Would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 so that it would be legal for an employer to “require employees to speak English while engaged in work.”

S.A. 1206, introduced by Sen. Inhofe (R-OK)
Would require each government agency, within 180 days of enactment, to provide a “Multilingual Services Expenses Report” that provides a summary and analysis of all multilingual services provided.

S.A. 1225, introduced by Sen. Rubio (R-FL)
Would remove the opportunity for immigrants applying for legal residency status to demonstrate that they are “satisfactorily pursuing a course of study, pursuant to standards established by the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretary, to achieve an understanding of English and knowledge and understanding of the history and Government of the United States” at the level of proficiency now required for citizenship. Instead it would require that all immigrant achieve that level of proficiency prior to applying for a green card.

S.A. 1348, introduced by Sen. Fischer (R-NE)
Would insert an English language requirement as a prerequisite to registered provisional immigrant status. Essnetially, an undocumented immigrant who could not demonstrate English proficiency would not be allowed to attain legal status of any kind at all. h/t CLASP

Let me know if I missed anything!

 

UDPATE 6/20/13: I’m updating as I go. Just added the Fischer amendment (see above).

What the Rubio Amendment Actually Does

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

(Updated Below)

I’ve noticed that headline writers and twitter commentators are in the habit of describing Sen. Rubio’s proposed amendment as “tightening” or “toughening” the English requirement in the immigration bill. Just to be clear: the current Senate bill already requires all non-English speaking undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. to learn English (with waivers for the disabled and the elderly, just as there are for citizenship). It is already tougher than the requirements for those applying for green cards under the current system, which does not require English proficiency.

What the current Senate bill does is recognize the fact that 70% of undocumented immigrants currently do not possess the English proficiency needed to meet citizenship-level proficiency, and that it can take hundreds of hours of instruction to attain that level of proficiency. Essentially, the Senate bill allows those individuals to move forward with an application for legal residency by demonstrating a commitment to learning English if they have not yet attained full proficiency.

Alexander Bolton, in an article about the amendment in The Hill, writes that Sen. Rubio’s amendment would strike language in the bill that allows the English proficiency requirement to be met “simply by signing up for a language course.” That is simply not the case. The bill requires individuals who lack sufficient proficiency in English to be “satisfactorily pursuing a course of study, pursuant to standards established by the Secretary of Education, in consultation with” the Secretary of Homeland Security. (my emphasis) That’s clearly more than just “signing up” for a course.

Reasonable people (i.e. not these guys) could debate whether there are ways to strengthen or clarify this provision—to better ensure that people are really learning, for example—but Sen. Rubio’s amendment simply lops it off. As I wrote yesterday, I think that is going to result in thousands of individuals deciding not to go forward with legalization, which is presumably not the Senator’s intent. Perhaps a compromise is possible that would address the Senator’s concerns without wiping out the provision altogether.

UPDATE 6/13/13: Excellent article from CLASP on the Rubio amendment here.