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Tech Companies Try Apprenticeships To Fill The Tech Skills Gap (thehill.com)
Slashdot reader jonyen writes: For generations, apprenticeships have been the way of working life; master craftsmen taking apprentices under their wing, teaching them the tools of the trade. This declined during the Industrial Revolution as the advent of the assembly line enabled mass employment for unskilled laborers. The master-apprentice model went further out of focus as higher education and formal training became increasingly more valuable.
Fast forward to the 21st century, where employers are turning back the page to apprenticeships in an effort to fill a growing skills gap in the labor force in the digital age. Code.org estimates there will be a million unfulfilled tech jobs by 2020.
jonyen shared this article by IBM's Vice President of Talent:IBM is committed to addressing this shortage and recently launched an apprenticeship program registered with the US Department of Labor, with a plan to have 100 apprentices in 2018. ... Other firms have taken up the apprenticeship challenge as well. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, for example, has called for creating 5 million American apprentices in the next five years.
An apprenticeship offers the chance for Americans to get the formal education they need, whether through a traditional university, a community college or a trade school, while getting something else: On-the-job experience and an income... Right now, there are more than 6 million jobs in the U.S. that are going unfilled because employers can't find candidates with the right skills, according to the Labor Department.
IBM says their apprentices "are on their way to becoming software developers in our Cloud business and mainframe administrators for technologies like Blockchain, and we will add new apprenticeships in data analytics and cybersecurity as we replicate the program across the U.S."
"Ninety-one percent of apprentices in the U.S. find employment after completing their program, and their average starting wage is above $60,000."
Fast forward to the 21st century, where employers are turning back the page to apprenticeships in an effort to fill a growing skills gap in the labor force in the digital age. Code.org estimates there will be a million unfulfilled tech jobs by 2020.
jonyen shared this article by IBM's Vice President of Talent:IBM is committed to addressing this shortage and recently launched an apprenticeship program registered with the US Department of Labor, with a plan to have 100 apprentices in 2018. ... Other firms have taken up the apprenticeship challenge as well. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, for example, has called for creating 5 million American apprentices in the next five years.
An apprenticeship offers the chance for Americans to get the formal education they need, whether through a traditional university, a community college or a trade school, while getting something else: On-the-job experience and an income... Right now, there are more than 6 million jobs in the U.S. that are going unfilled because employers can't find candidates with the right skills, according to the Labor Department.
IBM says their apprentices "are on their way to becoming software developers in our Cloud business and mainframe administrators for technologies like Blockchain, and we will add new apprenticeships in data analytics and cybersecurity as we replicate the program across the U.S."
"Ninety-one percent of apprentices in the U.S. find employment after completing their program, and their average starting wage is above $60,000."
The solution to the problem of "too poor at $60k" is pretty obvious. MOVE! The free market will quickly fix this problem if people would make smarter decisions. I'm a perfect example of this.
I got a B.S. in Computer Science in 2008. Right when everything was collapsing I turned down a lucrative job in San Diego. It was my dream job too. I did the math and concluded it wasn't cost effective to take a "good" salary offer when I potentially could do better on my own. The salary was actually really good too even for an expensive area like San Diego- probably too good given I had just graduated. In any event I decided to stick to NJ and start a business instead. I took a part time job making just $9 / hr while working on a start-up. Within six months I quit the part time job and within three years I had two very successful businesses. So successful in fact I shut down one of them in the process of moving to New Hampshire to take part in the Free State Project.
Why would I shut down a business and move??? Easy. Smarter decision. In New Hampshire I basically got twice the house for half the money. I'm 33 now, sold my $500,000 house in 2006 and moved to New Hampshire. Here I bought a $200,000 house that would have gone for $350,000 where I was living. My taxes are lower. I don't have ANOTHER 7% tax added on to my income above and beyond what others pay, etc. Yea- the business I closed up shop in NJ when I moved was getting taxed another 7% because it was IT service work. The service IT industry in NJ started getting taxed another 7%. Unlike accountants and lawyers and others. So I said f'c it. Closed up shop and moved to NH. I had two successful businesses and one was a highly successful online operation. In New Hampshire I make more money than I did in New Jersey even though technically my income temporarily went down. Six figures goes a lot farther in New Hampshire than it does in New Jersey, California, New York, or Massachusetts. Basically big government states.
The moral of the story is take responsibility for your own actions. If somebody else won't pay you what your worth where they're offering you the job don't take it.
I've got numerous employees and friends who understand this. Some are making what seems like a terrible wage too- but in reality ain't that bad here. Can you afford a house on $12 / hour salary? Turns out here you can. I've got multiple employees who can and do have condo and houses. In fact some very nice houses at that. Neither of the two people I'm thinking of in particular have a significant other with a 2nd income either... which is very telling.