SHARE THIS SHOW:
RELATED CONVERSATIONS:
RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
When people in struggling industries like manufacturing and wood products jobs are laid off, they're often eligible for job retraining. (They become, in federal parlance, "dislocated workers.") The idea is to help workers transition from struggling industries into growth industries — like green jobs and health care.
But there are plenty of questions about whether jobs actually follow the retraining and about how well-calibrated job training and demand actually are. Some people have also questioned whether retraining programs focus too much on short-term employment and not enough on long-terms careers.
Have you taken a job retraining program? Did it lead to a job? When does retraining work — and when doesn't it?
This is part of OPB's Getting Back to Work series. You can find news pieces from the series as well as more coverage of the economy here.
GUESTS:
- Mike McLeren: Laid off from Freightliner in 2009, currently studying water and environmental technology at Clackamas Community College
- Alice Todd: Laid off from Weyerhaeuser Foster Veneer, currently studying mechatronics at Linn-Benton Community College
- Agnes Balassa: Executive director of the Oregon Workforce Partnership
- Stefanie Siebold: Workforce Development Manager for PCC
- Mark Haas: Owner of Bridgetown Bakery
Tagged as: back to work · economy · jobs
Photo credit: -Nathan / Creative Commons
-
Re-Training is only valuable to the extent that it could GURANTEE a JOB. When you read a lot of press about a particular hot field, it gets popular, it gets crowded and like fads, the bubble burst--the Law of Supply and Demand.
We have lived almost deja-vu Twilight Zone stories of one bubble after another, but collectively seem to have failed to learn the lessons. The YK2 Computer Program Bubble, the Tech Bubble, the Construction Bubble, the Realty Bubble, the Home Mortgage Bubble, The Financial Banking Bubble, the Automotive Manufacturing / SUV Bubble, the Teacher Bubble, the Nursing Bubble, the Green Tech Job Bubble etc.
Unfortunately it leaves of trail of trained but underutilized workers in all these deflated industries. IF everyone goes to nursing school, THEN the oversupply leads to underemployment.
The trick is to find a niche that you love and be focused on it for long term. OR be willing to re-locate for work. One may have to make sacrifices to be able to pursue a livelihood versus living in a exciting or attractive setting--but ya gotta eat. Short of moving there are Non-Paying Internships, Volunteer Work, and Networking Parties.
Or become an entrepreneur. Try this exercise: Think of what business can you begin in PDX with a $100,000 seed money and a one year of grace that will begin to make a profit. It has to be a needed product that fills an un-met niche.
One word for graduates: China. It may bubble but it has the deepest potential capital reserves in history of modern finance. Few Oregon businesses are geared for the largest market in the world. Opportunity may exist in Western Oregon, just West of Astoria.
-
Re-training programs are nice if you are lucky enough to be able to guess what the hot job is going to be in 2/4/6 years AND it isn't glutted with an over-abundance of people chasing the job. Even then, those of us who are experienced (older, 35 and up) workers are at a disadvantage when competing with the 22-27 crowd. And it doesn't matter if it is for an internship position, a professional position, or an entry-level position at almost any employer in town.
.
.
Further, moving to follow the elusive jobs is easier said than done when one has no money to move, no car to use to move, and no cushion to fall back on if one's partner give's up her job to move with one. (Moving to follow the jobs was mentioned in the discussion either yesterday or Wednesday.)
-
I feel like our family - who haven't qualified for these programs - paid for our own job re-training as well as all of these other people through our taxes. I payed for my own retraining by working a grunt college bookstore job while taking classes over the course of several years - could not find anyone willing to help a lower middle class, white, female, housewife/mom with kids in college. It would have been great to be working in my chosen field before the age of 52.
Iam working now - and love it! Only took me a year to find a job! :)
-
How nice! They have a special program for those who are displaced from working for Monaco! WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US WHO HAVE NEVER WORKED IN TIMBER, OR CONSTRUCTION, OR IN RV ASSEMBLY?!?!?!
-
I worked in commercial fishing for 12 years but that is another industry that is shaky. I wanted to go to school for engineering, a 4-year degree, rather than a technical degree. Despite being able to prove that I was going from a declining industry to one that was in demand, I was not able to get training funds, but was able to finally find a program that allowed me to collect unemployment benefits for an extra year while in school.
I really wanted this for my future rather than a technical degree, so I borrowed the rest of the money I needed, worked an internship after the unemployment ran out, and had room-mates to make ends meet while in school. I did graduate with a lot of debt ($36,000) but am happy to be working now for 4 years in my new profession and being a contributing worker, tax-payer and consumer.
I'm grateful for the extra help I got from UI. The only thing I think they could have done since they didn't want to fund me for a 4-year degree, is allow someone leaving a declining industry to one in demand funding in their last one or two years of school.
-
I fully agree with you, they focus on small gains rather then preparing people for the future. I also was not paid for what I wanted and went for a short degree that put me back into the same industry that laid me off, so now I am unemployed again.
Alvaro Cervantes
-
These are indeed trouble times and unlike anything that has gone before in this country. Just finished an ariticle about the sky- rocketing costs of higher education in the US, where rising prices seem unconnected to the generally gradual inflation elsewhere in the economy. One point made in the piece was the uncertain return on the investment in higher education. People posting on this board write about their experiences with unemployment even when holding master's degrees.
Also mentioned was the cozy relationship between colleges and the various banks and Govt education loan programs. The suggestion being that colleges are raising their costs less from dire necessity than from opportunity afforded them by the easy access to loans by students.
Gievn the general look and direction of this economy, investing in a craft skill might pay higher and more secure returns.
-
When I left HP in 2005, I had the opportunity to get into the retraining program offered by the TAA (Trade Act Agreement), but it did not materialize in a Job. It is a nice program, but it is focused on a short term strategy. If I had gone for a master degree with Chinese language skills, I would not have the same problem again (I am back to the program from being unemployed from Trimble Navigation Systems now). Also, the program does not paid for school, if the school is not certified by the state of Oregon Education authorities, then They won't pay for it; I wanted to get trained by IBM or Sun Microsystems, but they would not pay for that. I ended up going for a very competive field (IT Windows OS basically) and Could not get a job in that field. I am going back to the TAA again (today) and this time I want to go for a master degree if they help, if they don't help for a master, I don't know what to do. Thanks OPB, Alvaro Cervantes
-
Broadcasting, including Public Broadcasting from North Carolina, dried up for me in 1998. I retrained to become a teacher. I was then told that it took 15 years to become an "effective teacher." I just turned 57 and did the math. I received plenty of good to excellent observations, but was layed off because of funding and lack of students in my small school system. I was urged to earn a Master's degree and teach adult learners. I worked part time at a local community college and loved it. My wife (a respiratory therapist was recruited by Salem Hospital, so we moved to Oregon. We've been here for a year. I have discovered that I have the wrong kind of Master's in order to teach here. Public and private secondary schools, where I have the most experience requires a MEd. They are laying off English teachers and there seems to be a freeze at the community college level. I have decided to go back in and get the MEd. with an English Teaching of Speakers of Other Language certification. I will be 62 when that happens. I have no hope for retirement, I just want to teach in Oregon. The only bright side of my situation is that I will probably be dead before I get a chance to pay back all my student loans (over $100,000). My advice would be take any job a person to get. Decades of experience in a field or advance degrees mean little or nothing unless one is willing to move to North Dakota or Alaska.
-
I never went through a retraining program. I got an old fashioned liberal arts BA @ Linfield College, class of 1977. I enlisted in the US Air Force and was trained as a Burroughs mainframe computer operator. I became an operations shift leader, skipped technical school to become an applications programmer, and retired (20 years and 13 days of service) as an IBM mainframe systems programmer just in time for the Y2K panic. I continued to work unhappily in IT, the thrill was gone, through 2007; first as a contractor, then as an insurance company employee, then for the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs. Then I followed my wife back to Oregon and applied for a job with the VA as a Procurement Technician. I “transferred” (same desk, different job) to become a Contract Specialist in January 2008. I got the transfer because I had that BA and I convinced the boss that I wanted the job. I am now drafting contracts for the DVA for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and occasionally for millions of dollars for construction and remodeling projects. I like my office mates, I feel that I am helping my fellow veterans, life is good. The point is: a retraining program is not the only way to change your job life. If you are willing to restart your salary curve and you can convince an employer that you are willing and able to learn the job and that you really want the job, you just might have a new career. I did it: I’m about to be a GS-11 again and a GS-12 is not out of reach. Good luck to all and to all a good night.
-
I was recently laid off for a couple months starting at the first of the year and signed up to take an on-line class to further my education and possibly make myself more marketable in todays demanding job search. I started the classes in February and after two weeks I was called back to work. It became very overwhelming to try to keep up with the class and still work at the same time. The courses I was taking were from a institutue in the east and I was having trouble with the time difference and responses back from the professor. I was told at the time of registering that I would need 10-15 hours per week to complete my assignments but it was requiring much more. I decided that I needed to quit the class and was left with a $900.00 bill that became due upon my quitting. The moral of this is to do some research before signing on, take classes locally and be sure that you will have the time to commit to them.
-
Retraining program is a great idea, for me it could be a great competitive edge among the company to adapt such methods for it will make every employee to be proficient and effective with theirs task and responsibilities furthermore knowing the human resources as one of the most important asset of the company success isn’t far to achieve. I would recommend most companies to do the retraining program for it will develop their employees / worker’s potential which would be a great benefit in realizing company’s triumph.
-
Comments are now closed.
I've been a vocational counselor for 30 years, and have been through several cycles of downturn, though none so severe as the present - and this time, I'm among those affected, now on unemployment for over a year. The Workers' Compensation system has been gradually shrinking and shifting over the years, with an inevitable attrition in the demand for counselors.
I've worked with people who ask this very question: relocation / retraining? ... and now, entertain that same choice.
It does not need to be an 'either / or' dilemma. One can approach both, methodically, simultaneously.
The key is to do the research. Research the labor markets through classified ads, labor market statistics and informational interviews.
An information interview is exactly that: calling employers in the industry and asking specific questions about the field, openings, qualifications, competition, how one will 'measure up' with an entry level qualification, advancement, and so forth. One should undertake at least a good half dozen such in each field, or location, one is considering.
It is critical to know what employers in a particular field want, and what your competition is, or will be. It will do little good to retrain for an entry level certification or Associates Degree, into a field in which employers are looking for, and finding, applicants with advanced degrees or experience. It will do no good to relocate to an area in which the competition is more highly qualified.
I am currently working on computer certifications, while maintaining my professional qualifications - and I have been and continue applying for jobs, nationwide. The other key is to 'knock' on as many doors as possible - and see which one (s) open.