The Job Training Charade
by Gordon Lafer · first published 2004
5mentions
2recommended by
3HN commenters
2010–2019first – last mentioned
67% recommend33% neutral
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…viable alternative to prevent mass social unrest is to just give people money. The real waste comes from trying to spend it on ditch-digging and job training welfare programs. Read Gordon Lafer's The Job Training Charade for the statistics, to understand what will happen to the US in the next 20 years, and for an answer to tptacek's original question (spoiler alert: such a program doesn't exist, because it's impossible).…
on “Rethinking 99 weeks of unemployment” ↗…of what etiquette schools teach is exactly that. So are most "job training" programs in the US ("don't smell bad, don't insult your interviewers, etc." - it's really a big joke; I recommend Lafer's The Job Training Charade if you want to understand what's going to happen to the US work force and economy in the next 20 years). Your example of skills training for autism is probably the best. There's also the self-help and…
on “Programming is Easy, Software Development is Hard” ↗If you are interested in learning more about the history and failure of US job training I recommend "The Job Training Charade". Essentially it is one of those policies that sounds good and appeals to both sides of the aisle. However decades of experience with different programs has shown it doesn't work. There is even a study…
on “‘Routine’ Jobs Are Disappearing” ↗…a myth Job re-training is more than a myth, it is another Reagan-era privatization scam, designed to funnel public money to private for-profit training centers and trade schools. Gordon Lafer's _The Job Training Charade_ is a great book on the subject.
on “Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality” ↗Rand, your post is repeating the same garbage about job training that's been universal for the past 30 years (See "The Job Training Charade" by Gordon Lafer,) with a little dash of age discrimination just so you'll fit in with the hacker news crowd. (I know a lot of people who are in their 30's, 40's and 50's who've successfully learned…
on “The irony of the US economy: no jobs and no one to hire” ↗