Here’s some depressing news. AT&T’s CEO says his company is having trouble finding enough skilled workers in the United States to fill the 5,000 jobs he promised to bring back to this country.

“We’re having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs,” AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company’s headquarters is located.

So far, only around 1,400 jobs have been returned to the United States of 5,000, a target it set in 2006, the company said, adding that it maintains the target.

Stephenson said he is especially distressed that in some U.S. communities and among certain groups, the high school dropout rate is as high as 50 percent.

“If I had a business that half the product we turned out was defective or you couldn’t put into the marketplace, I would shut that business down,” he said.

Gone are the days when AT&T and other U.S. companies had to hire locally, he said.

“We’re able to do new product engineering in Bangalore as easily as we’re able to do it in Austin, Texas,” he said, referring to the Indian city where many international companies have “outsourced” technical and customer support workers.

“I know you don’t like hearing that, but that’s the way it is,” he said.

That’s sad.

AT&T CEO says hard to find skilled U.S. workers [Yahoo!] (Thanks, Cannon!)

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