My theory is that most employers (minimum wage service sector jobs and manual labour excepted)now want documentable proof of job applicants having used the core skills required of the jobs they are applying for. That therefore most workers must use skills in very low paying jobs before they can apply these skills to higher paying work. This is in addition to workers requiring credentials for most higher paying work.

The example I will give is office administrative work. Suppose a worker wishes to do office administrative work involving answering the telephone, schedueling appointments, billing clients, accepting payment of bills, and keeping track of the billing data (data entry and basic spreadsheet calculations). Even if a worker has training, they may have to have worked at several minimum or near minimum wage jobs where they "acquired" the various skills necessary for getting the office administrative work they desire. Such jobs might include:

* Minimum wage retail work (cashier). Necessary to gain experience handling money, since any better jobs involving cash handling want previous csh handling experience. May also be necessary to gain phone answering experience, because any higher level jobs that involve answering the phone require experience.

* Straight data entry work (in other words, just entering data into fields, no data manipulation whatsoever). May be necessary to gain data entry experience, as any jobs where data manipulation is required generally require previous data entry experience. Unfortunately, these jobs tend not to pay more tha $10/hour, and are often part time, shift work.

And woe be it the person who acquires credentials to work in a field before acquiring the experience using the skills necessary to work in said field. Because most employers now consider this worker to be overqualified for the jobs where they can get experience in performing the skills required for their chosen field. These employers will hire a less qualified worker who is less likely to move on to better work.

In short, most workers who don't gear their early work to the field they want to work in, may screw themselves over in the long run.

This is not to say that it is impossible to get work in ones field without having previous experience using the skills required in the field. There are even some fields where this is not as necessary. However, I do suspect this has become the norm in most fields of work.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
How the Conservative Nanny State Creates Good Jobs for Those at the Top (U.S.)

It's a different scenario here in Canada with more highly skilled and educated workers coming in from Asia, but the idea is similar with professional organizations favouring Canadian trained and educated engineers, doctors, lawyers etc. A Ryerson Polytech study reported that since the late 1990's, over 650, 000 well educated and skilled Asian emigres to Canada went back to Asia to take advantage of opportunities there. Asia booms while the second largest country in the world cherry picks the best educated workers and playing second fiddle-enabler to the most energy dependent economy in the world south of us. Meanwhile the average Canadian college or university graduate starts out in life in their mid20's to 30's with a 15 to 20 year student loan debt sentence unheard of in most countries.

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Do we have too many businesses subsidized to stay in business that shouldn't?

Why do Canadian businesses not pay student debt for those they hire?

Why do they not pay for job training like in other countries?

Why do they whine to the federal government for money to teach English to the qualified workers they need but won't hire?

I was glad to hear that it is finally against the law for an employer to require "Canadian experience". That was disgusting.

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Originally posted by saga:

Do we have too many businesses subsidized to stay in business that shouldn't?.

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Absolutely. I was going to write a big long reply and list why I think Canada will never make the top ten most competitive economies, and why Canada is a phony G8 economy. But essentially, I think they're trying to make Canada the model for neoLiberal capitalism that didn't succeed in 1980's Chile after just twelve years of near perfect laboratory conditions and zero political opposition. Here, the neoLiberal plan cannot fail. We've got far too much natural wealth at their disposal. At least not until the Canada's natural resource wealth is depleted some time in the future after parasitic, predatory capitalists bleeds Canada dry of our non-renewables and absconds with the untaxed booty laughing all the way to the bank.

For now the plan is similar to what they attempted to do in Chile, which is to decentralize power further, slash as many public service jobs and run what's left of public civil service and governmental services like a business. The big six banks provide foreign capitalists, and mainly Americans, with the money to buy up all our most profitable natural resources, what's left of our crown corporations and valuable public assets on the cheap, as in a little honest graft, and very likely significant kick-back never hurt any politician as they say. Canada is basically a fort knox of natural resource wealth. That's our role as a U.S. colony, a repository of natural wealth for the corporatocracy to raid at will with the aid of our own banks and not to become so economically competitive or develop any sort of nationalist agenda. Conservatives did something similar in New Zealand in the 90's and beat that economy within an inch of life until droves of unemployed young people fled that country for Europe and elsewhere looking for an affordable education.

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Absolutely. I was going to write a big long reply and list why I think Canada will never make the top ten most competitive economies, and why Canada is a phony G8 economy. But essentially, I think they're trying to make Canada the model for neoLiberal capitalism that didn't succeed in 1980's Chile after just twelve years of near perfect laboratory conditions and zero political opposition. Here, the neoLiberal plan cannot fail. We've got far too much natural wealth at their disposal. At least not until the Canada's natural resource wealth is depleted some time in the future after parasitic, predatory capitalists bleeds Canada dry of our non-renewables and absconds with the untaxed booty laughing all the way to the bank.

For now the plan is similar to what they attempted to do in Chile, which is to decentralize power further, slash as many public service jobs and run what's left of public civil service and governmental services like a business. The big six banks provide foreign capitalists, and mainly Americans, with the money to buy up all our most profitable natural resources, what's left of our crown corporations and valuable public assets on the cheap, as in a little honest graft, and very likely significant kick-back never hurt any politician as they say. Canada is basically a fort knox of natural resource wealth. That's our role as a U.S. colony, a repository of natural wealth for the corporatocracy to raid at will with the aid of our own banks and not to become so economically competitive or develop any sort of nationalist agenda. Conservatives did something similar in New Zealand in the 90's and beat that economy within an inch of life until droves of unemployed young people fled that country for Europe and elsewhere looking for an affordable education.

If I was a young Canadian looking for opportunity, I would give my search so long in this country before going where the opportunities exist. Politics in this country could change. Stranger things have happened. And tell friends never even consider joining the Canadian army for the sake of all the goodies they're offering to entice young and impressionable Canadians to sign up and prop up U.S. imperialism abroad. No way Jose, I can think of a million better things to do with the rest of my life, tell them.

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