WHY ARE EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS BASIC TO JOB SUCCESS?
The changing nature of today’s employment picture is creating new challenges for employers and employees alike. Employers, faced with a shrinking labor pool, are encountering many applicants who have minimum job competencies. From these applicants, they must select for hire those who have the greatest potential for meeting job demands. Conversely, the jobs for which employers are hiring today require workers to have a broader range of competencies than ever before–competencies that are job specific but also include the kinds of management and organizational skills previously required only of supervisors. The demand for this new kind of worker has been triggered by a number of factors, one of which is the multicultural nature of the work force. The U.S. Department of Labor projects that, by 2000, 75 percent of all people entering the work force will be women and minorities, many of whom are immigrants. To facilitate the job success of these individuals, employers and co-workers alike m