There is no skills shortage. Manufacturing has lost over 5.5 million jobs now over the last decade. These people are of all skill sets semi to highly skilled. These folks simply do not vanish into thin air. Us workers are the best educated and most productive in the world, and we have some of the best universities in the world cranking out grads every year.

I have point blank asked these whiney employers on other boards such as Industry Week's to define exaclty what skills are short - especially given all these un and underemployed mfg engineers and techs? they can never give a straight answer. And what skills are short that these folks can not be retrained for? no answers

What it boils down to is that these employers want skilled workers, even though those skills may not even really be needed for the job, but they do not wish to pay accordingly nor do they want the reponsibility of retraining workers to do other tasks. Its all a big smokescreen

I heard there was such a study authorized and funded by Congress. An agency within the Commerce department did it and
the Bush administration kept it under wraps....

The statement I make above seems to be true as although being educated I am a loser and its obvious to my young son who, sees the obvious hypocrisy in my extolling the virtues of education.
How can I demonstrate the truth without obviously lying to my own son when I tell him he must keep up his grades and go to college when he sees me at home, unemployed and helpless to do anything about it.
But I have degrees, and experience and therefore is perfectly logical that companies used to respond back (this no longer happens) that I am OVERQUALIFIED.
Overqualified?
Come on! I am not that educated that endowed with special talents that I am overqualified. I would say i'm pretty under qualified for what i understood to be the required levels of education necessary for respectable positions in industry etc.
In fact up until the early 90's this seemed to be true and I could provide for my growing family and not worry about how am I going to survive or pay for a simple home repair or any other expenditure beyond a few hundred dollars, without sacrificing my survivability. SURVIVAL....but the government (yeah of the people, for the people and what was that last one ..? by..or lies to the people?
Lies yes..more and more swill from them whose serves which has become an acronym for those who have their hand in the till and our stimulating foreign economies.
Money does not have any borders and so you see they will benefit from more jobs in india whereas we poo folk who lives in this country can't find work!
SO they government has earned an honorary BS.

I am going to rant and rave because this has effected me personally and I am increasingly incensed at the debate when its clear as day as we see and hear and touch those whose lives and livelyhood destroyed by those, representatives?

BS
I am commenting on an opinion stated on this blog purporting that the government is lying to us about there not being enough skilled workers to fill job vacancies presumably in technical fields:
When issues strike home they become personal and when the governments actions effect me at home then I become personally involved because the government is hitting me where it hurts the most: The pocket book let alone my self respect.

With over 30 years of experience in a wide range of disciplines and two degrees in the sciences you would think I would have businesses calling me up and begging me to take a job.
The cold hard reality is that I get zero responses from my resume, zero responses from my phone calls, zero responses from my webpage advertising my skill set on the internet.
Now if the government is not lying then .... well the government is just plain lying.
Needless to say there are no jobs for technically competent people and what jobs there are I am as well as many I know; that I am over qualified!
How can that be if there is a lack of trained skilled and educated individuals?
Further the almost cruel hoax is in trying to justify to my 14 year old son that he will find gainful employment through education.
Its that apparent when he sees me becoming increasingly frustrated and disenchanted; spending my days desperately trying to find employment but always with the response:
"We no longer have our facilities here in the US".
OR "most of our manufacturing is now down overseas"
"We just have a small office here in the states and all of our research, development and manufacturing are done elsewhere"

So this is personal and this is about the government selling our economic vitality , actively and openly , selling our economic vitality and future to foreign governments.
I even heard a politician state that , in effect, how can we expect them to cut carbon emissions if we can;t provide them with jobs.
This to me is treason because it is helping a country that is philosophically and ideologically opposed to this country and to democracy.
But then again I am angry and I tend to be that way whenever someone strikes me at home, strikes me so that it hurts and it creates concern and real fear that my future has been compromised and that my son's future is all but forgotten during the exchanges and deals made without our knowledge by our duly elected representatives.
Not one to become outspoken about politics - there is a time to act and if we do not act now there may never be a time to act because we will be too busy trying to survive and people too busy with the details of survival do not have the time or energy to actively stand up for their rights.
That, we all know, is the perfect time for new leaders to emerge who promise us what we are desperate for and as we are lead away deluded we remain unemployed, disenfranchised and more and more helpless as those in power gain more and purchase still more with the lifeblood of this countries wealth.
I know I sound angry and probably irrational. But there is no logic to what is happening its pure and unmitigated greed and abuse of power by those in government.
As long as we pretend and allow those in power to lie to us we are at fault and so we need to stand up and demand accountability.
Who are we but the people to continue to take this crap from the government?
So yes more lies...statistics about unemployment only being 10-12 percent yet we see tent cities...we see more and more of the obvious.

The truth is too painful and as we reel from its sinister implications we lose more ground and more jobs and pretty soon its all academic because there will not be any country to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. Which by the way is what our REPRESENTATIVES are supposed to defend that document..what is it called..
constipati.. constitution!
if there are any organizations that put the government to task on this where are they?
Information is the key to freedom by lying to us they take our freedoms away

HELL YES THEY ARE LYING

this is related to labor arbitrage, which has been ongoing, he couldn't get a job before the recession.

Remember all of that stuff about outsourcing, trade, displacing workers, age discrimination?

All of that is BR - before recession.