Skilled Jobs
Betsy Ross has it all wrong, just like most Republicans (Commentary, March 10). We do not need to increase skilled immigrants. We need to improve our K-12 schools and colleges and provide more vocational training for kids after they finish high school, if they decide not to go on to college.
Corporate America does a very poor job of offering training to young employees so that they can move up the ladder, or stay current on needed skills. In our dynamic global economy people will change careers many times because their skills or skilled jobs become obsolete, and on their own they must retrain for new skilled jobs.
Does Ross want us to import a lot of skilled labor, which will drive down the wages of other skilled labor, to only have to support these skilled imports with unemployment, welfare and retraining once their skills have become obsolete? We in America, the throw-away society, are stuck with former high-wage earners who are lucky if they retrain and then only earn one-third of their former income.
THOMAS J. MARTIN
West Hollywood
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