What Germans Know Could Help Bridge U.S. Workers' Skill Gap

hide captionPresident Barack Obama promotes job training at General Electric's Waukesha, Wis., gas engine plant in January.

Job training programs are failing to turn out enough skilled workers to fill job openings in the U.S., a phenomenon that puzzles some European companies that expand into the U.S.

President Obama freely admits that America needs to improve the way it trains workers. In a speech at a General Electric manufacturing plant in Wisconsin earlier this year, he said, "We gotta move away from what my labor secretary, Tom Perez, calls 'train and pray.' You train workers first and then you hope they get a job."

In other words, not enough Americans are training for the jobs industry needs to fill. Nationwide, about 4 million job openings are going unfilled, but 10 million people are unemployed, according to Labor Department statistics.

The phenomenon is puzzling to some European companies that have expanded to the U.S. and are used to a more skilled workforce.

The German Way To Train Workers

The White House has tapped Joe Biden to review America's jobs programs, a move welcomed by the German American Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta, which represents about 1,500 German companies throughout the South.

"It's pretty much that middle gap," explains spokeswoman Martina Stellmaszek. "They have no problems finding engineers there are great engineers in the United States or really very low-qualified jobs there is also no problem filling that. But it's really that middle segment where in Germany, we have the vocational training system to exactly train for that."

Stellmazek is referring to the three-year apprenticeship every German trade worker must undergo before being certified in a skilled job. They work three or four days a week at a company and go to school for the other one or two days. The Chamber of Commerce awards the certificates and sets standards for what is taught in vocational schools.

"If you have a certificate that you're an electrician, it doesn't matter if you do it in Hamburg or Berlin," Stellmaszek says. "Companies know what they get."

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What Germans Know Could Help Bridge U.S. Workers' Skill Gap