Reskilling America: Learning to Labor in the Twenty-First Century

Katherine S. Newman and Hella Winston examine America's vocational training system and its role in preparing workers for the twenty-first century economy. After decades of outsourcing and downsizing that displaced blue-collar workers, major manufacturers including Apple, BMW, Bosch, and Volkswagen are now opening U.S. plants and investing millions in domestic production. However, the country lacks a sufficiently skilled labor pool to fill these technically demanding positions. Educational policies emphasizing college attendance for all students have left a generation of potential workers without vocational pathways, particularly in the de-industrialized Northeast and Midwest. The authors argue that while the American secondary school system was intended as an egalitarian institution, it has instead deepened existing inequalities. Newman and Winston propose learning from countries like Germany and Austria, where youth unemployment stands at 7%. They call for reconsidering vocational training through industry apprenticeships and rigorous technical education, moving away from its historical association with tracking. By revamping the school system to value these pathways, the United States could develop a high-performance labor force, meet employer demand for skilled workers across multiple sectors, and expand economic opportunity.