Business Alliance Board Member Mike Sotelo wrote an excellent op-ed you can find in today’s Seattle Times. He argues for better appreciating the financial and personal success that can result from careers in construction and manufacturing trades.
“We have to start recognizing that our society would grind to a halt without skilled carpenters, laborers, chefs and hotel managers… Every time trade employers need workers, they scratch their heads and do whatever they can to attract and retain employees to fit their business models. Contractors are hiring anyone who can fog a mirror because there aren’t enough bodies. Washington state does not provide enough opportunity for learning about the trades. Our education system has failed in a couple of ways. First, we still have not reached a statewide high-school graduation rate of 80 percent. This in itself is unacceptable. And K-12 schools have not been able to figure out that in addition to degree completion, the job of our system is to ready our kids to become productive contributors to society and to be self-supporting.”
Read the whole thing here!
Mike Sotelo
Mike Sotelo is co-founder of the Combined Ethnic Chamber, board member of the Washington Business Alliance and founder of Consolidar, a company serving the Latino community, providing employment training to job seekers and matching them with employers.