Lack of Skilled Workers, Not Oil Prices, Hurts U.S. Economy's Growth Most, Say Manufacturers

摘要

In a remarkable counter to conventional wisdom, more leading manufacturing executives today believe the lack of skilled labor and management skills in the work force -not current oil prices or the weak U.S. dollar - most hurts the growth of America's economy. In a new poll conducted by sponsors of the FABTECH International & AWS Welding Show, including METALFORM, 27 percent of the executives cited the lack of employee skills as the leading obstacle to growth. Ranked second was oil prices (cited by 20 percent), followed by tax policies (11 percent), weak U.S. dollar (10 percent), the financial commitment in Iraq (9 percent) and the credit crisis (7 percent).