In February last year the 47-year-old was laid off from her job selling time-shares at the Seaview Marriott in Galloway, N.J. In July, she enrolled in an office-technology program at nearby Atlantic Cape Community College hoping it would quickly land her a new position. She finished that program—and a four-week internship in December—but is still hunting for work.
Ms. Motte still thinks the training will help her get hired. "The fact that I have the computer skills will put me on par with someone who's younger," she says. She reckons that, along with 25 years of experience as a salesperson and manager, will make her an attractive prospect for any job that comes up.
Economists agree that retraining pays off, eventually.
"The labor market just isn't doing a lot of hiring right now, but there are obviously long-run payoffs" to retraining, says Harvard economist Lawrence Katz. He says that's especially true for skills that can be applied to a variety of jobs.
But while retraining may improve unemployed workers' long-term prospects, in the shorter term many are struggling to find work. Job losses across the country have hurt blue- and white-collar workers alike and left few industries unscathed. That has created a deep pool of workers competing for the positions available.
The article highlights a point I made in this post where I noted the unemployment rate for unskilled labor (no high school diploma) was at 15% while the unemployment rate for college educated (and higher) people was still at 5% or technical full employment. For people in between -- that is people with some college or some technical school -- the rates lie between.
The point of this article is people are moving in the right direction. The problem right now is the job market is moving very slowly in the right direction -- that is, to the point where there are enough job openings to start hiring people.
