Report Urges More Convenient Job Skills Training

The Michigan League for Human Services this week released a report on what the state should do to improve the job prospects of its unskilled workers. The League's Peter Ruark tells us that there are about one point seven million of them here. Such workers are defined as having poor reading, writing, and math skills -- as well as English skills -- in addition to having no formal job training. Ruark worked with a Workforce Development Coalition of the League for Human Services to study this issue, and says that getting the unskilled laborers on even ground with the rest of the labor pool is not easy:

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The Workforce Development Coalition's report recommended that programs be offered that teach both basic skills -- like reading and math -- on top of workplace skills. Ruark says that trying to get the unskilled workers into community college programs that take a couple of years to finish just isn't realistic, noting their family and other obligations. He also recommends that the state reexamine its commitment to adult training.