If you’re in business publishing or even just follow the news, you hear a lot about the skills gap in this country. It makes for a great story; with unemployment hovering around 8.6 percent, it’s certainly strains logic to learn that companies can’t find the talent they say they need.

A recent op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal by Peter Cappelli –no stranger to our magazine – titled “Why Companies Aren’t Getting the Employees They Need” deconstructs this idea. Overall, Cappelli’s piece amounts to a boilerplate introduction for anyone who doesn’t really know what a corporate learning department does and why. But one of his statements jumps out. He writes:

“Unfortunately, American companies don’t seem to do training anymore.”

Wait, what was that again? As someone who edits a publication that covers learning and development, it’s enough to make your hair stand on end, and is likely eyebrow-raising for any CLO. But Cappelli backs this up by stating on-boarding in U.S. companies is often a brief process. Furthermore, he sympathizes with companies reluctant to invest a great deal in developing workers who may jump ship soon afterward. And herein, he argues, lies the skill shortage. It’s not so much that companies can’t find the employees they need but that they can’t find them for what they’re willing to pay. The solution is training:

“They need to drop the idea of finding perfect candidates and look for people who could do the job with a bit of training and practice.”

So what’s the way forward? Cappelli recommends modified apprenticeship, as well as promoting from within. But the first step he prescribes is partnering with education providers, specifically community colleges, to tailor “very applied course work to the specific needs of the employer.” Smart advice, because according to an article published in The Wall Street Journal last month, some of our nation’s most ambitious students are gravitating toward “lower-cost public colleges” in an effort to better manage the costs they incur in acquiring an education.

The article asks “Is an Ivy League Diploma Worth It?” It states:

“More students are choosing lower-cost public colleges or commuting to schools from home to save on housing expenses. Twenty-two percent of students from families with annual household incomes above $100,000 attended public, two-year schools in the 2010-2011 academic year, up from 12 percent the previous year, according to a report from student-loan company Sallie Mae.”

Three students interviewed for the article were admitted to private schools but chose public ones in an effort to structure what they spend on their educations. They seem confident in their decisions but have some misgivings, and the WSJ does point out certain inherent risks in this strategy: recruiters with top companies are less likely to visit public schools; a diploma from a public school opens fewer doors; and overcrowding in public schools might mean students take longer to complete their degrees. All of this could contribute to the skills gap HR professionals continue to grapple with and that CLOs may find themselves charged with closing.

So what do you, as CLO, think of all this? Is your company finding the talent it needs? Are you facing increased challenges in time-to-productivity for new employees? What do you make of Cappelli’s contention that “American companies don’t seem to do training anymore”? And finally, if students are migrating to public schools to keep education costs down in this tough economy, will you meet them there by partnering with such institutions to ensure new employees have the skills you need to get them started?