That is appallingly true in the manufacturing field, (and finally something on HN that I've researched to death).

I now work in education, part of which is career and technical education. We are approached by two very large businesses constantly complaining about the shortage of skilled workers. "We can't fill these jobs fast enough" is the theme, and students bite constantly. These jobs range from machine operators, to skilled machinists to engineers.

One look at the job postings reveal a couple of themes:

Machine operator listed at $10.00; 28 hours a week, so they don't have to provide benefits. That's an unskilled position, so I don't disagree with the wage. BUT, for the last 40 years, these positions were full-time with benefits. In the last 5 to 10 years they've been downsized to whatever the number is that keeps it just under full-time so the business doesn't have to worry about benefits.

Skilled Machinist: the last post was for a master machinist (20 years exp? I'm not sure how long that takes) with various CAD, MAZAK and other various certifications depending on the job - one even required that the applicant be a Bridge certified welder in addition to master machinist (price those people out sometime). They listed at a ‘competitive’ $15-$25 an hour. That's a joke for the time, energy and ability that it takes to do that job. If you ever want to see what the definition of good at everything is – talk to a master machinist those men and women can quite literally use any piece of machinery that exists. These wages are almost identical to what this position made in the 1970's. That is over 40 years later, and they expect to pay the same wage. I'm not certain what they post for a journeyman machinist, but I have to assume that it's low as well.

Engineer: They can't hire these, because 'your institution isn't turning out quality applicants'. We were spooked by this, so we did a careful inventory of current student prospects, and past graduate employment. Turns out that they can't hire our graduates because they're offering 30,XXX-45,XXX lower per year than John Deer, Caterpillar and other heavy machinery organizations that are within 4 hours of our town. Granted, these businesses aren't as large as JD or Cat, but they are still multi-billion dollar international companies.

My prediction is the following: In 10-15 years we will have an overabundance of ‘skilled workers’ in the manufacturing field, much as we have a surplus of college graduates right now. The message to kids used to be ‘go to college,’ now it’s ‘be an engineer or work in the manufacturing industry’. It’s just a matter of time before the software gets to the point that the monkey entering numbers doesn’t have to actually understand the numbers to turn out a product. When that happens, look out kiddos, the bottom will drop out of that market as well. My proof? Five years ago our first-time, first-year students were 75% liberal arts/soft sciences, 25% hard sciences and engineering. Our enrollment figures for Fall 2014 show more of a 50/50 split, with the number of new engineering students growing faster than any other category. This shift is nearly unprecedented.

The train is headed down the tracks full speed, and no one is manning the brakes.