No Worker Left Behind

[tamias6]

Today, Michigan is now has the dubious title of the most unemployed state in the union. In one of many attempts to turn things around for this state Gov. Granholm is lauching what she calls "No Worker Left Behind." This program is aimed to help 100,000 unemployed and recently displaced workers get training for new jobs. What are your thoughts? Will it help bring jobs to Michigan or train workers for out of state jobs?

Here is a link to the Governor's page explaining the program.

No Worker Left Behind

[gvsusean]

Today, Michigan is now has the dubious title of the most unemployed state in the union. In one of many attempts to turn things around for this state Gov. Granholm is lauching what she calls "No Worker Left Behind." This program is aimed to help 100,000 unemployed and recently displaced workers get training for new jobs. What are your thoughts? Will it help bring jobs to Michigan or train workers for out of state jobs?

Here is a link to the Governor's page explaining the program.

No Worker Left Behind

[suydam]

She has no other option than to try and help train the work force here.

Sure some are going to leave for greener pastures, but you will never (yes never) lure global corporations to metro-Detroit or anywhere else in this great state of ours if the work force isn't highly educated.

As much as we GR evangelistas like to tout our fair city, we've got the same problem with regards to the unemployed base as everywhere else in the state. The days of a high school diploma being enough to get ahead in life were over 25 years ago in the rest of the country.... it just took Michigan longer to get to the same destination. All those manufacturing jobs are never coming back....and we're stuck with 1,000s upon 1,000s of former manufacturing employees looking for new jobs. Education is the only way out of that black hole and I applaud the governor for being creative.

Who knows if this will work....but it's certainly a good idea.

[RustTown]

It is true; the state does really have any other good options, but I question how fruitful this will be. It's hard enough to get into college a young man or woman that has put it off, let alone middle-aged adults with families that have been making good money for decades on relatively low skills. What this sounds like it's essentially doing is simply retraining these laid-off workers for other low-skilled jobs.

The real problem is that the state has stuck its head in the sand for decades about it's decline dating back further than Granholm, Engler, Blanchard, etc...instead of putting in the hard work of educating future generations, our leaders, Dem and GOP, liberal and conservative have failed us, and I believe we passed the point of no return YEARS ago. What is happening, and has happened, is that we've lossed entire generations to compete in the "new" global ecomony, that's been "new" for a few decades now. What we're getting is these workers being moved into lower-paying retail jobs that actually unfortunately match their skills, what is called the new "Wal-Mart" economy.

I think we have to concede, painfully, that we've lost A LOT of ground, but this time put in the hard work to actually build a new economy. I'll take a lot of flack from partisan hacks, but I objectively believe Granholm is the first governor probably since Miliken actually taking the steps needed to ween us off these manufacturing jobs that will never come back. Hopefully, here predecessor continues to do the same because it's going to take a lot longer than two terms to turn Michigan around.