Here’s an entry worthy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not: in the midst of the Great Recession of 2009, as U.S. jobs evaporate across the country, especially in the airline industry and particularly among skilled maintenance workers, Uncle Sam is working feverishly to fill jobs at domestic repair stations.
Does this mean helping jobless Americans find jobs? Retraining them to fill these desirable jobs? No indeed! The U.S. government is busy handing out hundreds, maybe thousands, of visas to foreign workers to fill aviation maintenance jobs in America. And these are not low-wage jobs, not jobs that only unskilled, migrant workers would be willing to do. These are solid middle-class jobs at high-tech repair stations averaging $1,000 per week. How many unemployed U.S. workers would give anything for a shot at these jobs? How about underemployed U.S. workers forced by the recession to accept jobs far below their former pay and skill levels?