LatinaLista — A stark reality that now faces the United States is that the country’s manufacturing, high-tech and software industries don’t have enough skilled workers to fill the current job vacancies. With 40 percent of Latino students dropping out of high school, it doesn’t take a high school graduate to know that today’s dropouts are tomorrow’s low-wage earners.
Low wage has always been synonymous with so-called “McJobs,” assembly line type work that doesn’t require anything more than a warm body performing rote routines. Yet, before this time in history, businesses and communities have not given much thought to low wage work, but now they have to.
Spearheading the conversation about “Reinventing low wage work” is the Aspen Institute. Gathering experts for a series of roundtable discussions on the issue, the Aspen Institute delved into such topics as the nature of low wage work and the challenges low wage work presents to workers, businesses and the economy.
Given current trends, it’s a conversation that will be repeated in the years to come, and with increasing urgency.
