Caterpillar, one of the world's largest machinery manufacturers, with 59,000 employees in the U.S. alone, is building five new plants in the United States. Their biggest problem? Not enough qualified workers.
CEO Doug Oberhelman is not shy about pointing fingers. In a September CBS TV interview, he stated flatly, "our education system has failed all of us."
At about the same time, Oberhelman spelled out for a Chicago business newspaper the details, as relayed by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, as they are affecting Caterpillar:
"We cannot find hourly production people, and, for that matter, many technical, engineering service technicians, and even welders, and it is hurting our manufacturing base in the United States . . . we have to retrain every person we hire."
Perhaps the most important retraining initiative would be to focus on those 300,000 counselors in high school systems around the country who advise graduating seniors on what their next steps should be. At the moment, collectively, they are doing a terrible job. Call your high school principal or school board representative.
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