Chinese turn to Boston for job-training techniques - Business - The Boston Globe

By Katie Johnston

| Globe Staff

December 16, 2011

The Chinese instructors crowded into a hallway at the Greater Boston YMCA, snapping pictures of the bell graduates of the job-training program ring when they get a job. They peeked at a mock call center, where students practice customer service skills and tried out a computer program that guides trainees through the ins and outs of working at a hotel supply company.

The 15 visitors, from Beijing Polytechnic, were in Boston this week to study YMCA Training Inc., a five-month program that teaches computer and administrative skills to low-income job seekers.

In China, demand for office workers is rising rapidly as the economy continues to boom, but programs to teach word processing, billing, and business math to unskilled rural workers flooding the cities are in short supply.

Traditionally, China has focused on educating students at the university level, leaving those who can’t get into college to work as laborers. But as the country shifts from low-skilled assembly work to more sophisticated industries and services, there is a greater need for workers with midlevel skills. That has led schools like government-run Beijing Polytechnic to turn to the United States for expertise.

Chinese turn to Boston for job-training techniques - Business - The Boston Globe