ã€World Wide Web Reporter Lin Di】 According to the New York Times in the Foreign Media, the concept based on skills is booming. Non-profit organizations, schools, state governments and companies often start to launch so-called “new leaders†in partnerships. Work, it is a science and technology position, more emphasis on skills, rather than emphasis on university degrees.
A few years ago, Sean Bridges and his mother Linda lived in Wiley Ford, West Virginia. Their only source of income is her monthly social security disability allowance. He had applied for jobs at Wal-Mart and Burger King but was not employed.
However, although Bridges has no work experience, he has some specific skills. He has made and sold some simple personal computers. He once studied information technology at a community university. In 2013, when he heard that IBM recruited people at a nearby operations center, he immediately applied for a job and demonstrated his skills.
Today, Bridges, 25, is a computer security analyst with an annual salary of $45,000. In the Appalachia region where the economy is sluggish, that is enough to bring him his own house and car, normal consumption - as well as professional ambition.
"I made a big breakthrough," he said. "That's exactly what I need."
What is needed is skills
Bridges represents a new but promising workforce in the US labor market: those who engage in so-called new-college jobs or mid-level skill jobs. While the U.S. economy struggles to match two-thirds of adults without a four-year university degree with good jobs, Bridges’ experience shows that the skills of workers are better than traditional job placement, job history, personal preferences, etc. The standard is more important. Raising the skills to a higher level than the educational background has created a new path for employment and customization training for many people, as well as creating a path to the middle class.
This skill-based work is of paramount importance when the government is trying to improve the survival of those who are left behind in the American economy. Many of those people are supporters of Donald Trump.
“We desperately need to provide another path to the middle class for those who do not have a four-year college degree,†said Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Clinton’s Minister of Labor, “We have to be viable. The system is moving forward."
This skills-based concept is becoming increasingly popular. Non-profit organizations, schools, state governments, and companies are starting to launch such projects. They usually use a cooperative approach. On Wednesday, the concept gained strong support from Microsoft. The company announced that it has donated more than $25 million to help Skillful, a project that aims to promote skill-oriented recruitment, training and education. The project was led by the Markle Foundation and was launched in Colorado last year. Microsoft’s donation funds will be used for expansion in local and other states.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, said, "We need new models and concepts, or we will let more and more people fall behind our economy."
It is not yet clear whether relatively few skills-centric projects can train a large amount of labor and widely change the company's employment practices. However, the skills-based approach has brought some encouraging early results in the technology industry, which may provide reference to other industries.
Rapidly expanding TechHire
The reason why these jobs can take off in the technology industry is mainly due to two reasons. On the one hand, computing skills are usually clearly defined. For example, writing code is a specific task. Success or failure can be tested and measured. At the same time, the demand for jobs with technical skills has skyrocketed.
A rapidly expanding technology project is TechHire, which was founded in 2015 and is the flagship project of the non-profit social enterprise Opportunity@Work. TechHire provides funding and technology to train workers across the United States and helps them find jobs by nurturing a local network of job seekers, trainers, and businesses.
In just two years, TechHire's network has grown to 72 communities, 237 training organizations, and 1,300 employees. It has helped more than 4,000 people find work.
According to Byron Auguste, president of Opportunity@Work, TechHire's mission is to undermine the “cultural hegemony of a bachelor’s degreeâ€.
Paying for a well-paid job
Nichole Clark from Paintsville, KY, heard a radio advertisement for TechHire's Eastern Kentucky project last year. The project provides six months of software programming training, including work in a company with a weekly salary of $400. The salary level is no less than the salary of Clarke, who is now 24 years old, as a manager at Pizza Hut.
Clarke said that because she does not have a university degree, her vision seems to be limited to low-paying jobs in fast-food restaurants, retail stores, or doctors' clinics. She pointed out that the TechHire project may be "a stepping stone for a well-paid job, which means everything."
After successfully passing the internet screening test and interview, Clarke entered the TechHire project. TechHire has a wide variety of roles. It usually provides participants with training grants, but in this project it recruits applicants with the software development and consulting company Interapt to provide advice and share best practice examples. The training subsidy was paid with a grant of 2.7 million U.S. dollars from the Appalachian Regional Commission.
After completing a four-month full-time course in software programming and a two-month internship with Interapt developers, Clarke was formally employed by Interapt in May. As a team member responsible for software quality assurance and testing, she now earns more than $40,000 a year, which is roughly double that of her when working at Pizza Hut.
Clark is very confident about his future career. "As long as you have these skills, you will be able to handle countless characters," she said.
Skillful promotes information flow
In Colorado, Skillful is committed to improving the flow and dissemination of useful information among job seekers, employers, educators, governments, and local training organizations. The organization focuses on positions in technology, healthcare and advanced manufacturing technologies.
90 companies work with Skillful's employees and partners to improve and clarify their skill descriptions. The data gave birth to an online "training and seeking" job - developed by LinkedIn researchers - that showed the salaries of different positions, required skills, training programs, and nearby vacancies. (Microsoft acquired Skillful's partner LinkedIn last year.)
Zoe Baird, CEO of the Markel Foundation, pointed out: “We are trying to harness the power of subversive economy—technology and data—to drive the labor market to help all Americans.â€
31-year-old Ron Gallegos Jr. has benefited from the Skillful project. Over the years, he has been working as a facility manager, responsible for managing the cleaning of retail stores. He felt very uneasy about this and he really wanted to pursue his career in the technology industry.
He has a part-time job in repairing televisions, appliances and PCs. But these skills are self-learning. He does not have a university degree and he needs training and skills certificates.
Therefore, at the end of 2015, Gallegos resigned from his job, devoted himself fully to training and obtaining a computer support technician certificate, and later sought to obtain an internet safety technician certificate.
At his local community college, Skillful representatives provided tips for job search, resume preparation, financial support, and interpersonal communication. In an activity, Gallegos learned that a safety course he wanted to attend was supported by the state government.
Gallegos stated that the career coach of the project also emphasized so-called soft skills such as concise speaking, teamwork, conscious participation in industry and professional gatherings, and networking.
Gallegos was not content to find a job but created a job for himself: Mile High IT Services was founded last autumn. Today, he is a technical support contractor for small businesses, and his company alone is making progress. His annual income exceeds $50,000.
"Now, the future is bright for me," he said.
IBM is more inclined to "new leader" positions
In the Rocket Center (Rocket Center, which used to make rocket engines and now manufactures some composite materials for US fighter jets), IBM has occupied buildings and employed 350 employees including Bridges. They work on cloud computing, network security, application development, and helpdesk.
In the past two years, nearly one-third of IBM’s new recruits there and in other regions have no four-year university degrees. IBM collaborated with the local community college to design a curriculum and match one-year and two-year courses that match the company’s recruitment needs.
For companies like IBM, which has vacancies in the United States with 5,000 jobs, new-collar workers can help it meet its labor needs - and if those jobs work in places that are far from the center of the city, the cost of hiring those workers is also It will be reduced because the cost of living and the general work in the city center are relatively high.
Sam Ladah, IBM's vice president of talent, said, "This is a good thing for our business, job seekers and the community."
The company has stopped disclosing its staff in the United States since 2007. In addition, as the business is declining, it will make layoffs on a regular basis. IBM does not want to disclose whether its current total staff size in the United States has expanded.
However, at the center of West Virginia, IBM plans to recruit 250 people this year, including recruiting more people like Bridges.
"Now we are recruiting skills," Lada pointed out.
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