Trump’s Stand on Immigration Jeopardizes the Labor Market

Donald Trump’s recent decision on immigration, besides being a human rights nightmare, makes one thing very clear—he understands very little about attracting and retaining talent.  In this article by Jeffrey Sparshott in the Wall Street Journal, the author discusses how small businesses are spending more money than ever to find and train skilled workers. One of the ways we fill this need is attracting talent from overseas to fill highly skilled labor needs, which is why Trump’s cruel ban on Muslim immigration jeopardizes the U.S. economy. Forbes points out the very real brain drain caused by this policy and Scientific American reports that thousands of physicians and medical students banned by this executive order and may leave hospitals without staffs. Affected technologists and scientists could easily go to Canada, Europe—or even China—instead; top talent is in high demand. As I discuss in my new book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, the need to attract and retain talent should be one of the driving factors in creating psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces. Trump’s policies do the exact opposite.  

Credit: CNN

Yes, You Should Be Angry: The Manufacturing Jobs Slump

Stories like this frustrate me. Manufacturing companies in the US are having difficulty filling key positions because there seems to be a lack of skilled employees to fill them. The excuse that education systems don’t emphasize the value of trade and manufacturing jobs, or that schools are “not evolving alongside industry needs” doesn’t hold too much water. In my view, the industry as a whole should have been able to anticipate this problem, and should have invested in their employees rather than letting them go. Teaching employees the skills they need to operate more technologically complex machinery is a far more sustainable method of maintaining a healthy workforce, as opposed to assuming that new generations would provide an unlimited pool of fresher and cheaper workers. Workers who have been affected by this situation are totally justified to be angry with an industry that has failed them. Read more in-depth at The Wall Street Journal. 

Photo: Employees install panels on airplane wings at the Boeing Co. manufacturing facility in Renton, Wash., last year. PHOTO: DAVID RYDER/BLOOMBERG NEWS

The Effect of Temporary Workers on the Job Market

Photo: Sam Hodgson for NYT

The idea that the main growth of the American job market is composed of “gig” jobs – contractors and temporary workers – is troubling in and of itself. However, the added lens of ageism makes this notion more disturbing. By employing short-term workers, businesses are encouraging a culture that cuts out support for employees – especially workers over 45 with more than 10 years of service for their companies, who are exactly the people contracted employees are most likely to replace. This reminds me of a story from January about Disney employees who were laid off for contract employees that they were then asked to train for the jobs they were vacating. While that particular case may not be explicitly related to ageism, I would not be surprised if most layoffs in favor of contracted or temporary employees hurt older workers. Read the full story at The New York Times.