Even Tax Money Won't Tempt Them

A month or so ago, I mentioned an announcement from Toyota about the expansion of their business into Canada on the now defunct South Knox Bubba web log. SKB kindly reprinted the peice and it did generate some good comments. Today I see that the web log Facing South has a story about it and a link - (alwayts interesting stories there, by the way)

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2005/08/toyota-reveals-limits-of-great.asp

Basically, Toyota refused lots of fresh, hot new tax dollars from the Southeast because they simply cannot get a workforce who understands the work required. Here is a sample of the reasons why Toyota decided to go to Canada -

"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant [...]

Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double [the] subsidy [Southern states were offering]. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.

Now, before you say, give the schools money, remember TN and other states have been gushing millions into education in the last 10 years, while never really improving the Quality of Education. Why? It is more profitable for schools to keep the money flowing in and the best way to do that is make sure the Quality of Education never improves.
It is about growing Jobs in Education.