« Help an indicted lawmaker! | Main | Max Hackett fired from WGOW »
July 05, 2005
Canadians: Smarter Than Us, With the Cool Auto Plants That We Wanted
Why did Toyota pick Cambridge, Ontario as the site for its $800 million auto assembly plant, even though several Southern states offered double the subsidies?
Because Canadians can read.
"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.
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.
"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said.
Anybody feel like debating the link between schools and economic growth now?
(Link via SKB)
| By mesh | 03:09 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://chattablogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/22780
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Canadians: Smarter Than Us, With the Cool Auto Plants That We Wanted:
