Vocational education can help small business by (1) broadening the type and scope of skills taught; (2) helping prevent labor shortages by preparing disadvantaged and underrepresented groups for employment; and (3) helping small businesses determine their training and development needs. (SK)

Discusses the critical ongoing need for skills and education to maintain the work force. Looks at what organizations are doing to maintain employee skills, add to the entry-level work force pool, and work with educators to ensure that students will have the skills they need. (JOW)

Belying the stereotypes, vocational schools, with the help of business, are developing better-trained, more productive workers. Improved vocational education programs can make academics relevant, reduce the dropout rate, encourage postsecondary education, provide jobs, and retrain older workers. (SK)

A program to grant government subsidies to employers who agree to hire more than their usual number of unemployed workers aged 16-19 is described. As part of the agreement, employers must provide work-related training as well as employment, thus increasing the levels of education and employment among British youth. (IS)

Reports on a study of the impact of formalized school-based job-referral procedures among 94 students in vocationally oriented Japanese high schools. Finds that the process achieves a meritocratic allocation of jobs and a smooth entry into the workforce for most students. (CFR)

This interview with Carolyn Golding, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training at U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), discusses new requirements that global competition and technological changes are creating for American workplace and reviews the role of the DOL in the national debate on education. Training for participation in the global…

Compares employers' stated needs for entry-level workers possessing better academic skills with their training programs and hiring practices to supposedly meet this need. Discovers a dichotomy between the stated needs and the corrective practice. Most remedial training emphasizes short-term job skills and hiring practices do not reward academic…

There are more than 4 million small businesses across the country that provide more than half of private sector employment, generate 47 percent of the gross national product, and generate two out of every three new jobs in the United States. Because small businesses provide the majority of new workers with their first work experience, they are at…