The Nation : Report Warns of Skilled Labor Shortage

The United States faces a growing skilled labor shortage potentially more destructive to long-term economic health than the budget or trade deficits, an Economic Policy Institute report said. The authors of the report, “Workforce Policies for the 1990s,” predicted there would be millions of unskilled and economically dependent young people ill-equipped to participate in a modern economy. The study was written by former Secretary of Labor F. Ray Marshall and MIT economist Paul Osterman for the institute, a Washington think tank, which sent the report to President Bush and Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Hanford Dole. The report urged the Bush Administration to invest in an ambitious system of job training and retraining.