Skills Don’t Pay the Bills – Who makes more: a skilled welder or a McDonald’s manager?

The secret behind this skills gap is that it’s not a skills gap at all.

In a recent study, the Boston Consulting Group noted that, outside a few small cities that rely on the oil industry, there weren’t many places where manufacturing wages were going up and employers still couldn’t find enough workers. “Trying to hire high-skilled workers at rock-bottom rates,” the Boston Group study asserted, “is not a skills gap.”

The study’s conclusion, however, was scarier. Many skilled workers have simply chosen to apply their skills elsewhere rather than work for less, and few young people choose to invest in training for jobs that pay fast-food wages. As a result, the United States may soon have a hard time competing in the global economy.

One result is that the fake skills gap is threatening to create a real skills gap.

Read (New York Times)