What's in your skill set in this knowledge economy?
A post on buzzwords notes the following about
"knowledge economy" -->
An environment in which a person has run up $150,000 in student loans to pay for a law degree only to see jobs exported to India whose citizens are apparently very knowledgeable about the U.S. legal system. Example: "The best job in the knowledge economy is plumbing because nobody with an advanced degree knows how to use Drano."
[for a patent connection, see IPBiz posts Outsourcing legal work to India and
IBM to withdraw second patent application on outsourcing ]
IPBiz overhears discussions about "taking it offline" of which the post notes -->
Pester me about this after the meeting — or preferably never. "Jones, could we go offline to discuss the $10 underpayment of your expense account reimbursement?"
[for a patent connection on business meetings, see IPBiz post
IBM patent application on scheduling business meetings ]
Of relevance to failed applications for employment (and to lawyers)-->
Skill Set or Fit
Qualifications, generally modified by the words "wrong" or "bad," and most often used by Human Capital staffers as an excuse for not hiring somebody. Example: "His inability to speak in tongues obviously makes his skill set wrong for the litigator position."
[for an egregious (mis)use of "skill set", see a discussion of the Dickakian matter within
Who gets fired first, older or younger people?
***UPDATE
See Bloomberg post Employers in U.S. Cut More Jobs Than Forecast in September which includes text:
Manufacturing payrolls decreased by 6,000 after declining 28,000 a month earlier. Economists projected a 2,000 increase for September.
Employment at service-providers decreased 73,000. Construction companies subtracted 21,000 workers and retailers hired 5,700 workers.
Average hourly earnings were little changed at $19.10, today’s report showed.
Government payrolls decreased by 159,000. State and local governments reduced employment by 83,000, while the federal government lost 76,000 jobs.
The average work week for all workers held at 34.2 hours.
The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- increased to 17.1 percent from 16.7 percent.
The number of temporary workers increased to 16,900 after adding 17,700 in August. Payrolls at temporary-help agencies often slows as companies seeing a steady increase in demand take on permanent staff.
***Update Unemployed find old jobs now require more skills -->
The broader responsibilities mean it's harder to fill many of the jobs that are open these days. It helps explain why many companies complain they can't find qualified people for certain jobs, even with 4.6 unemployed Americans, on average, competing for each opening. By contrast, only 1.8 people, on average, were vying for each job opening before the recession.
(Go figure-->)
The total number of job openings does remain historically low: 3.2 million, down from 4.4 million before the recession. But the number of openings has surged 37 percent in the past year. And yet the unemployment rate has actually risen during that time. Companies still aren't finding it easy to fill job vacancies.
Take Bayer MaterialScience, a unit of Bayer. When the company sought earlier this year to hire a new health, safety and environment director for one of its plants, it wanted candidates with a wider range of abilities than before. In particular, it needed someone skilled not just in managing health and safety but also in guiding employees to adapt to workplace changes.
Joe Bozada, chief of staff for Bayer's CEO, said the company initially interviewed 30 candidates. Then it did final interviews with seven. But none had the additional experience the company now wanted. Ultimately, Bozada said, the company chose one of its own employees it had already trained.
That shift, across multiple industries, has caught the eye of David Altig, research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Workers aren't just being asked to increase their output, Altig says. They're being asked to broaden it, too.
A company might have had three back-office jobs before the recession, Altig said. Only one of those jobs might have required computer skills. Now, he said, "one person is doing all three of those jobs — and every job you fill has to have computer skills."
"knowledge economy" -->
An environment in which a person has run up $150,000 in student loans to pay for a law degree only to see jobs exported to India whose citizens are apparently very knowledgeable about the U.S. legal system. Example: "The best job in the knowledge economy is plumbing because nobody with an advanced degree knows how to use Drano."
[for a patent connection, see IPBiz posts Outsourcing legal work to India and
IBM to withdraw second patent application on outsourcing ]
IPBiz overhears discussions about "taking it offline" of which the post notes -->
Pester me about this after the meeting — or preferably never. "Jones, could we go offline to discuss the $10 underpayment of your expense account reimbursement?"
[for a patent connection on business meetings, see IPBiz post
IBM patent application on scheduling business meetings ]
Of relevance to failed applications for employment (and to lawyers)-->
Skill Set or Fit
Qualifications, generally modified by the words "wrong" or "bad," and most often used by Human Capital staffers as an excuse for not hiring somebody. Example: "His inability to speak in tongues obviously makes his skill set wrong for the litigator position."
[for an egregious (mis)use of "skill set", see a discussion of the Dickakian matter within
Who gets fired first, older or younger people?
***UPDATE
See Bloomberg post Employers in U.S. Cut More Jobs Than Forecast in September which includes text:
Manufacturing payrolls decreased by 6,000 after declining 28,000 a month earlier. Economists projected a 2,000 increase for September.
Employment at service-providers decreased 73,000. Construction companies subtracted 21,000 workers and retailers hired 5,700 workers.
Average hourly earnings were little changed at $19.10, today’s report showed.
Government payrolls decreased by 159,000. State and local governments reduced employment by 83,000, while the federal government lost 76,000 jobs.
The average work week for all workers held at 34.2 hours.
The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- increased to 17.1 percent from 16.7 percent.
The number of temporary workers increased to 16,900 after adding 17,700 in August. Payrolls at temporary-help agencies often slows as companies seeing a steady increase in demand take on permanent staff.
***Update Unemployed find old jobs now require more skills -->
The broader responsibilities mean it's harder to fill many of the jobs that are open these days. It helps explain why many companies complain they can't find qualified people for certain jobs, even with 4.6 unemployed Americans, on average, competing for each opening. By contrast, only 1.8 people, on average, were vying for each job opening before the recession.
(Go figure-->)
The total number of job openings does remain historically low: 3.2 million, down from 4.4 million before the recession. But the number of openings has surged 37 percent in the past year. And yet the unemployment rate has actually risen during that time. Companies still aren't finding it easy to fill job vacancies.
Take Bayer MaterialScience, a unit of Bayer. When the company sought earlier this year to hire a new health, safety and environment director for one of its plants, it wanted candidates with a wider range of abilities than before. In particular, it needed someone skilled not just in managing health and safety but also in guiding employees to adapt to workplace changes.
Joe Bozada, chief of staff for Bayer's CEO, said the company initially interviewed 30 candidates. Then it did final interviews with seven. But none had the additional experience the company now wanted. Ultimately, Bozada said, the company chose one of its own employees it had already trained.
That shift, across multiple industries, has caught the eye of David Altig, research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Workers aren't just being asked to increase their output, Altig says. They're being asked to broaden it, too.
A company might have had three back-office jobs before the recession, Altig said. Only one of those jobs might have required computer skills. Now, he said, "one person is doing all three of those jobs — and every job you fill has to have computer skills."
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 4:33 AM
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