Wednesday, October 10, 2012

I just read an article about governmental job placement services in New York

  and the truth is they do not work at all. The reporters said that all these places do is sign people up for welfare, food stamps, the free phone program and about everything else you can imagine and make no effort whatsoever to find peope work.




The person that was investigating this sent 4 people out to look for work and the 4 people came back with about 40 job offers including one restaurant owner that said he'd hire 12 people if they would just show up and apply. Twenty-four of the 40 job offers were entry level jobs which generally means the hiring company is willing to train applicants.



When I got out of the army back in the 70s I went to the unemployment office and they actually tried to help me find work. They had none, of course so they signed me up for unemployment which I stayed on for a couple of months until I started school. I had to scout around and hunt for work and because I knew school was starting soon, I will admit I played the system a little. I dragged it a out a couple extra weeks out until school started.



Still, when school was over with I had to find work and it only took me about two or three days to find work framing houses. While there wasn't a construction boom, there was work and I hired on as a framer.



Because I didn't know squat about framing, I got canned after a couple of days and found another job which I got canned from after about a week. The third job I found I kept and wound up getting a raise after my first couple of weeks because I was experienced. A year later I was doing my own jobs.



While I have tried governmental employment agencies over the years to find work I have never even gotten so much of an interview with a prospective employer from them. All they really seem to want to do is hand out checks.



Admittedly I have not been to one in years but the report I read from New York tells me that they have not gotten better, only worse. Much worse.



It seems that the only thing the government does these days is to hand out checks which would be one thing, but when they push people to take them it irks me to no end. Most people would rather have a paycheck than a government check and I suppose I am no different. I'd simply rather take care of myself than have someone else take care of me.



It seems that just about every program the feds come up with isn't really very efficient. There really isn't a whole lot of real world in many federal programs when you look at them and besides, they are inefficient, big, cumbersome and unwieldy. Not to mention just plain expensive.



Federal job training programs have generally been a joke because they are not fast moving to keep up with the changing needs of industry. By the time thay start a training program as often as not, the market for the trainees has already been flooded or they have been trained on out of date methods and/or on outdated equipment.



Incidentally, I have mat a total of one person that was doing well after learning a skill in a federal program. The Job Corps trained this shipyard worker I met to weld but you can bet your boots that he learned to shipfit on his own. Looking at the guy I met I think he would have been successful anyway because he had it in him.



If you want to see a job training program, go to private industry because they have to be flexible to keep up with markets. They also have to take a person and get him up to speed and making the company a profit because until the trainee is actually doing something he is nothing more than an expense.



I wish that most of the federal programs would simply go away and be replaced as needed by either the individual states or even the counties. The further down you push the responsibilities, generally the more efficient things run. The state or county could likely do a better job of tailoring things to meet local needs.



One of the things that seem to be halfway decent are community colleges that have halfway decent hands on programs run by people that have had real working experience in the private sector. I met a guy that teaches automotive body work a couple nights a week at a community college and he reported to me that virtually every one of his students finds work upon graduation in a decent shop.



Interestingly enough, this guy has no college, but he does have a couple of decades of working in the field under his belt. Betcha he teaches a pretty good course. I believe the county signs his paychecks.



I suppose if the feds did, he'd have to have a degree under his belt and there are not a whole lot of degreeholders that have twenty or more years in the body and fender business. The feds would just hire a college idiot and produce little more than people that have real skills other than what they read in a book.



I just wish the feds would step out of the game and leave it to either private business, the states or the communities.




my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

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