Job skills gap continues to grow

By Cherie Brower |Staff Writer|

California’s field of employment becomes more barren as the years pass.

By 2030, there will be 1.1 million fewer bachelor degree holding Californians in the state’s workforce, according to the Campaign for College Opportunity.

The job skills gap continues to grow and become disproportionate as retiring baby boomers leave their cubicles in a great exodus.

Newer generations who step foot into the workforce now find fewer positions to fill, and more demands to meet, but do not hold the education level equivalent of employees who came before them.

In 2013, it was estimated that four-year college degree holders earned, on average, 70 percent more than those who did not hold a college degree.

The cause for the widening gap in the incoming versus outgoing educated workforce can be attributed to a number of factors.

Outsourcing may be a notable loss for many occupations that value the power of a four-year degree.
India currently holds 65% of all outsourced IT jobs, and an estimated 564,000 California jobs have been transferred offshore to China since 2001, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The average systems engineer in India makes 329,434 rupees, which averages out to about $4,942, while the average systems engineer in the United States earns about $66,337, according to payscale.com.

Similarly, according to glassdoor.com, a systems engineer in China earns about 10,560 yuan, which equals to about $1,689.60.

The growing cost of college education is another factor in the decrease of qualified job applicants in California.

Between 2007 and 2012, $2 billion was cut from the Cal State budgets, according to the Press-Telegram.
Students struggling to earn their four-year degree now face higher tuition fees, more crowded campuses, and an overall greater cost of living.

With many well-paying jobs demanding a four-year degree, college students often find themselves living on minimum wage, and low-budget means, just to make ends meet.

Family structure can be yet another facet to the shortage of bachelor degrees.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2014, there were about 12 million single parent families in the United States. With the high cost of time, effort, and finances, and the high demands faced in parenthood, many single mothers and fathers may find it difficult to earn their degree.

Recently, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1228, aimed to assist homeless and struggling college students with proper housing.

In a statement released by Sam Alavi, Director of the ASUCD Office of Advocacy and Student Representation, to the California Aggie newspaper, “the signing of AB 1228 is definitely an important step to making sure that homeless students have the opportunity to both survive and thrive in higher education.”

As observed by CSUSB student Patricia Lopez, “in California, we have many counties that are considered [to be] of a low socioeconomic status, San Bernardino being one of them. I think that this skill gap contributes to this because they don’t have the education or skills that are required.”

With harsher bottom lines and more aggressive strides from American companies to save money, California students struggle to stay afloat in an ever-changing ocean of economic change Californis students struggle to stay afloat in an ever-changing ocean of economic change.