AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told an audience at San Antonio Chamber of Commerce luncheon this week that the company has managed to fill only 1,300 jobs out of 5,000 that it had pledged back in 2006 to bring back from India. Those jobs had been outsourced to India primarily by AT&T contractors. The problem is that AT&T can't seem to find enough educated and skilled workers for the jobs. It has apparently awakened AT&T and Stephenson to the ongoing problem of kids dropping out of school.
The high school drop-out rate is as high as 50% in some communities, Stephenson said. The company now wants to help fight that problem via the AT&T Foundation, its long-standing charitable organization. Labor unions and people who have high school educations, but are currently unemployed, may find AT&T's problem hard to believe, so it will be interesting to see the ripple effect of these comments (though Stephenson's comments have been circulating for a couple days already). Others may simply want to take note: Help wanted at AT&T.
For more:
- read this report at The San Antonio Express
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- Stay in school and maybe you can make big money like Stephenson