MAKING THE CASE FOR TECHNICAL EDUCATION In the white-collar service sector, worker supply exceeds job demand to the point where entry level workers are willing to work for nothing (internships) just for a chance to get hired. It’s a much different story in the manufacturing and industrial sectors for graduates with certificates and two-year A.A.S. degrees. Throughout the country and here in the Texas Panhandle, manufacturing, transportation and energy companies are hard pressed to find qualified applicants for well-paying entry-level jobs in instrumentation, electronics, machining, power plant, welding and HVACR. Over the last 20 years, pursuing a technical credential went out of fashion when large swathes of our industrial base moved off-shore to low-wage havens in Asia and South America, forcing our steel belt to become the rust belt. Parents steered their children to fouryear colleges in pursuit of white collar jobs because the merits of a technical education were perceived as inferior. ACTX.EDU
While the U.S. shuttered factories and plants, skilled workers retired or were laid off without younger workers coming up through the ranks to take their place. Now the U.S. doesn’t have enough skilled technical workers to fill the current job vacancies in machining, instrumentation, industrial maintenance and powerplant management. The good news is that the number of skilled jobs in these sectors are projected to increase over the next 10 years at a rate of 6-10% per year as plants open, workers retire and a number of manufacturing jobs return to the U.S.
At Amarillo College we are challenging the outdated notion that a technical education is an inferior education, that four years in school are better than two, and that technical career paths are limiting.
Employers come to us looking to hire students straight out of our programs, and all too often, we can’t meet their hiring needs because the demand is so high. Opportunities for well-paying technical careers in industry, transportation and manufacturing are expanding here in West Texas, where the demand for trained workers is higher than supply and will be for years to come. The challenge now is to create the desire in our students to pursue technical careers and to show them the opportunities and possibilities that exist in choosing a technical career path that’s right for them.
SOURCE: https://wspanhandle.com/site_main/labor_ market_high_dmnd_oc.php
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