>Time was, you could apply to a job and get trained on the employer's dime. In some things yes, but if you want to really dive in the past, time was that in h

>Time was, you could apply to a job and get trained on the employer's dime. In some things yes, but if you want to really dive in the past, time was that in high School there were 2 tracks, College and Vocational, Vocational was where welders, carpenters, auto mechanics, etc came out of. Today many schools focus solely on College track as the only valid path for K-12 Schools, this has lead to an extreme shortage of people in the Skilled Trades, like welding Most of the time when an employer would wire an Apprentice or Junior trade person they would in fact have a base understanding of the concepts, processes, and terminology but needed experience and limited on job training(and maybe certification) which the employer provided It was a partnership, as an employer you generally did not take a completely green person that had never saw a welder in their life and make them a welder. Further if you are already short staffed, adding a bunch of green persons will make matters WORSE not better as your experienced staff will be slowed as they train the new people... >>because there ain't any left to hire, and you need 'em, then guess who just got into the business of teaching welding, or is looking for someone else who can? High Schools... I strongly believe we need to re-balance K-12 to have a better mix of College Prep and Vocational. This nonsense of "Everyone must get a college degree to be successful" that is rampant in society needs to end