Brussels blues, redux

Perhaps I shouldn't be blaming the technology. Perhaps the real source of my aggravation is not the industry looking for a handout (I mean, they could say "no", but who says no to a free lunch), but rather the unmitigated nonsense that passes for rational argumentation. There is more at stake here than just "jobs". Although it may not seem so at first blush, the issue lies much deeper.

Over the past few years, I've been involved in a number of IT-industry-related projects, all of which have been funded by the European Commission. We have received funding for these initiatives because they have sought to narrow the gap between skills that are needed in the industry and those that potential employees are in possession of. It's been a matter of providing people with the right knowledge, skills, and competences for the positions that exist and will exist in the industry. Sounds noble, I know. And it is, in a sense, but the longer I deal with the matter, the more I am coming to believe that the cure is worse than the illness.

The big general push, both here in the EU and in the US is getting the right people in the right jobs. Across the board, people are pushing for a closer cooperation between education and industry so that the matches are better and more long-lasting. Both here and there, a lot of criticism has been raised against the education sector, be it public schools, vocational education and training, or (so-called) institutions of higher learning: find out what industry wants/needs, and give it to them. And that, my dear friends, is precisely the problem.

The key word describing this is "employability". We have to make people more "attractive" for the employer. Why? No, I don't want to hear about how the employee will be more productive. Employees have been more productive than ever for the past 40 years and all they have to show for it is higher rates of unemployment, lower wages, and highly exaggerated management compensation. No, I don't want to hear how the employee will deliver higher quality. Insisting that one person do the job of two, insisting on unpaid overtime "to get the job done", to push for ever higher margins all have nothing to do with quality. The customer gets the quality that is possible at the lowest cost of production, period ... at least that's how it works in consumer markets. So that's not it either. No, I don't want to hear about how the highly skilled workforce is what drives the economy forward. High-skilled means higher pay. High-skilled means the worker knows what s/he's doing and when you're cutting corners. High-skilled means ... well, trouble.

Oh, I hear what industry says they want, and they want lots of it, especially if the government is willing to subsidize it so they they don't have to pay for it themselves, but at bottom what they want are ready, willing, and ably conforming drones to do what they're told and to go away when they are not needed any longer. We might say it's about training and education and skills and competences, but what it's really about, in the end, as always, is money.