Highly qualified and decent workers are being passed over for younger workers lacking business skills

The two articles were on the WSJ website and they are the symptoms of a larger problem that is being made worse by business leaders -

The first article was a well written piece on how difficult it has been for workers who are between 40 - 60 years old to find work after the recession.  Having been in that situation, I understand the issue fully.

Take a look at this link

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303506404577448751320412974.html

Here is a quote from that article -

" More than 3.5 million Americans between the ages of 45 and 64 were unemployed as of May, 39% of them for a year or more—a rate of long-term unemployment that is unprecedented in modern U.S. history, and far higher than among younger workers.

The struggles of the middle-aged unemployed point to a larger economic problem: The labor market can't fully heal until people like Ms. Adams and Messrs. Daniel and Schoolfield can get back to work. The longer it takes, the deeper and more permanent the scars of the recession become—not just for the workers themselves, but for the broader economy.
The net-net of this article - Highly qualified and decent workers are being passed over due to being unemployed.  They have a lifetime worth of skills and knowledge but have been rendered unusable by companies who treat them as disposable."


Then we get this info, also from the Wall Street Journal -

This Embarrasses You and I*

Grammar Gaffes Invade the Office in an Age of Informal Email, Texting and Twitter by Sue Shellenbarger

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577466662919275448.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_LeadStoryNA

Here is a key part of that article -

" A majority of the younger workers hired by companies have a complete lack of grammar and understanding of how to properly handle business communications.

Managers are fighting an epidemic of grammar gaffes in the workplace. Many of them attribute slipping skills to the informality of email, texting and Twitter where slang and shortcuts are common. Such looseness with language can create bad impressions with clients, ruin marketing materials and cause communications errors, many managers say.

There's no easy fix. Some bosses and co-workers step in to correct mistakes, while others consult business-grammar guides for help. In a survey conducted earlier this year, about 45% of 430 employers said they were increasing employee-training programs to improve employees' grammar and other skills, according to the Society for Human Resource Management and AARP

Most participants in the Society for Human Resource Management-AARP survey blame younger workers for the skills gap. Tamara Erickson, an author and consultant on generational issues, says the problem isn't a lack of skill among 20- and 30-somethings. Accustomed to texting and social networking, "they've developed a new norm," Ms. Erickson says."


Colleges found this out when they had to start instituting courses to assist incoming freshmen with writing, English and math literacy.  The colleges needed to do this to ensure that the students could maintain the required standards.  This is a symptom of a failing education system that has been going downhill due to unions, ineffective teachers who are not rated on performance and a bloated system that demands more and more money while producing students unable to handle the basic skills needed to be a part of the workforce.

In Algebra, they taught us the basic equation " If A = B, and B = C then A must = C."
SO if we look at these issues I can draw the following conclusions -

A - Companies have purposely decided to take older workers off their books in an effort to save money on wages and benefits - thereby depriving themselves of highly qualified workers.  In their stead, they have and will hire cheaper, younger workers.

B - Based on the skill set of the younger workers hired, companies are getting less performance and having more difficulties with the cheaper, less experienced help they are bringing on to the job.  They will see the cost of this short sighted decision in spending more on training, lost business due to ineffective workers and lower profits.

And then we come to C - Due to the actions of Educators, Business Leaders, Teacher's Unions and the ineffective Politicians, we have created a multi-layer problem of wasted tax dollars spent in an under performing education system, ruined career opportunities for older workers and under-educated younger workers. It's a mess that will effect our country for decades until we change how we educate our students and how older workers are treated by businesses ignoring the best qualified applicants  simply because they are older than 45.

This issue is multifaceted and there's plenty of blame to go around - We have known for the past decade that teaching has mainly been about  teacher's tenure and not about excellence.  Unions thugs gamed the education system and POLS gave them the tax dollars to do so.....Businesses decided to take advantage of the recession to force out older workers and reduce overhead.

In the end, this tragedy means wasted tax dollars, lower wages, ruined careers for good workers and an education system that has failed for years while rewarding those who engineered the failure......Did I miss anything ???