In The Job Training Charade, Lafer attacks the U.S. economic policy that calls for the advancement of the skills and education of American workers as their way out of poverty.... Agree or not, readers will be challenged by this criticism of the underpinnings of American labor policy.- Harvard Business School (Working Knowledge) Lafer suggests there are other things the government could do that would help more than training. Among those are restricting the use of permanent-temp workers; stopping competition from goods made under illegal conditions in other countries; increasing the minimum wage; and capping prescription drug and health care costs.(Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal) Lafer's intention is to provide 'the first comprehensive critique of the history, track record, and economic assumptions underlying' American job training policies since the early 1960s (page 1). His book delivers on that promise. From cover to cover, it is an unrelenting, tough, thoroughly documented, passionately argued, and uncompromising indictment of the politicians, powerful economic interests and bureaucrats he holds responsible for the policies he so roundly condemns.- Michael Law, University of Waikato (Journal of Industrial Relations) In this well-written and hard-hitting critique, Lafer... argues that job training, as a federal policy response to poverty and unemployment, has been a near total failure.... This well-researched and insightful book should provoke widespread debate among scholars, politicians, policy makers, labor leaders, and employment and training professionals alike.(Choice)
