Business

Cruel Irony: Good Jobs Arriving in Detroit, But Too Many Lack Skills to Fill Them

December 17, 2014, 8:23 AM

It's a cruel irony, writes Bridge Magazine's Chastity Pratt Dawsey.

She's talking about jobs that are becoming available in Detroit.:

In a cruel turn, too many Detroiters lack the basic skills needed to get the jobs that are finally becoming available as the city rebuilds from bankruptcy, whether in construction, or in growing fields like healthcare and information technology. Making the situation worse, young people in the city are receiving too little training or work experience ‒ Detroit has the nation’s highest youth unemployment rate, and career training centers in the city’s struggling high schools have been cut, not bolstered, in recent years.
Even for many Detroiters receiving training, employment is no sure thing.

Training programs are full of people who have graduated from high schools with less than ninth-grade skills and can’t pass a proficiency test to get a job as a machinist or construction apprentice.

Community college classes are full of Detroiters who want in on the plentiful jobs in healthcare, but have to take remedial classes before they can qualify for certification.

And 12,000 Detroiters who looked for work last year with help from the state’s job development centers were found to have only middle-school-level reading and math skills, while most living-wage occupations require at least high-school-level skills.
 


Read more:  Bridge Magazine


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