Action urged on job training – Fed chief Alan Greenspan touts effect on wages (The State with the Best Education Wins!")

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says the nation’s high schools have to adapt to a high-technology future if the United States is to remain competitive for jobs.

In the last 20 years, the U.S. work force has failed to fully meet the skills needed for increasingly complex technology, Greenspan told more than 2,200 people Friday at the annual meeting of the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce.

By Joe Ruff
The Associated Press

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~33~1972965,00.html

A 1995 study showed fourth-grade students were above average in math and science but by the time they reached eighth-grade they had dropped closer to average, Greenspan said. By the time they were seniors in high school they had fallen well below the international average, he said.

“In short, our secondary school system needs to serve the requirements of a changing economy in the same way that the expansion of high schools with a broad curriculum served us so well in the first half of the twentieth century,” Greenspan said.

Two-year community colleges have served the country well by building on workers’ previous experience to create new job skills, Greenspan said.

Greenspan spoke in the hometown of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, a fact to which Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., alluded while introducing the Federal Reserve chairman.

“I know this luncheon is not as good as having a Dairy Queen luncheon with Warren Buffett,” Hagel said. “Nonetheless, it is our meager offering.”

Greenspan said there is widespread concern that the United States is losing manufacturing jobs to lower-wage economies in Asia and Latin America. Similar concerns have arisen about the possibility of losing better-paying white-collar jobs as businesses shift production to India and China, he said.

But Greenspan warned against using protectionist trade policies to ease the nation’s employment concerns.

“Protectionism will do little to create jobs; and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose jobs,” Greenspan said.

Instead, the United States needs to boost workers’ skills and further open markets to allow global competition, Greenspan said.

The labor market does appear to be improving, and new jobs are likely to replace old ones as they always have, Greenspan said.

“But fears about job security are understandably significant when nearly 2 million of our work force have been unemployed for more than a year,” Greenspan said.

Hagel said he agreed with Greenspan’s emphasis on job skills and the need to keep up with advancing technology.

“It’s skills, it’s training, it’s education, and then we find the opportunities,” Hagel said.