Posted by Leonard Steinberg on October 15th, 2011

With real unemployment soaring closer to 20%, unemployment has become the key problem in resolving our fiscal woes. Unemployed people cannot spend the way employed people do and the economy is suffering mostly from lack of demand. The saddest part of this story is that there are indeed hundreds of thousands of well paying jobs out there, but the workers applying for these jobs are simply not sufficiently skilled. Reuters reports that SIEMENS has over 3,000 vacancies waiting to be filled, but there are not enough skilled workers. Maths and science are ESSENTIAL in the new high tech world we have created, and until we invest the time, effort and money necessary to educate and re-educate, the unemployment figures will remain high.  With housing generally down the toilet in most parts of the country, this source of jobs has dried up for the time being. I do however feel certain that a sizeable building boom is about to hit New York…..and that can be only good for employment figures. Till then, we should focus on training the unemployed the maths and science skills necessary to get those jobs that sit there waiting….