Fred Cutler, who owns Spokane-based Cutler Counseling LLC, a vocational-rehabilitation counseling firm, has completed business missions this year to three Central European countries that are transitioning from communist economies to capitalist ones.


Cutler has been part of an effort contracted by the U.S. Department of Labor that helps train members of national employment agencies in Poland, Bulgaria, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. His task was to teach staff members in those countries common terminology to define various occupations and describe for the public there the skills people need to fill those jobs.


Under those countries former economies, citizens didnt have a lot of job freedom, and the economies depended on government for training and placement of workers in particular fields, Cutler says. The U.S.-led team was there to help staff members of the national employment agencies identify the training needs of jobs that actually existed versus the training that was traditionally available, he says.


I really gained an appreciation for the difficulties these countries have had and are having, Cutler says. The nature of transforming an economy to capitalism is terribly complex.


Cutler spent a week and a half in Poland and Bulgaria in July and a week in Macedonia in February. He taught employment agencies in those countries the terminology thats used in the U.S. Department of Labors O*Net system, a database of occupational information and labor market research. The O*Net, or Occupational Information Network, recently has replaced the departments Dictionary of Occupational Titles, a large reference book.


The data that O*Net contains is collected by surveying U.S. workers, who describe the work they do, the skills they need, and the knowledge they use on the job, the department says. The database is available online and in downloadable files and is used by human-resource personnel, dislocated workers, industry analysts, and others.


Cutler trained the employment-agency workers he worked with in Central Europe to use in their organizations the same lingo as O*Net, he says. He also taught them to write surveys similar to the ones used to collect data from workers here.


The idea was to provide a vocabulary to analyze jobs so that that information could be used by the national employment offices in policy decision making, Cutler says. My involvement was to help present the O*Net and its vocabulary as a methodology for describing training needs and job demands in such a way that people in two different parts of the country could use the same vocabulary.


Cutler was subcontracted to do the work by Worldwide Strategies Inc., of Boise, Idaho. The U.S. government is funding such projects in several European countries to help them transition from communism to capitalism, he says.


Although Polands unemployment rate is 15 percent to 18 percent, that country is well on its way to establishing a solid capitalistic economy, he says. In Poland, Cutler used his training to help employment counselors work with people seeking jobs in fields in which they are interested and have skills. In Macedonia, though, there is more poverty and the transition to capitalism isnt as far along, Cutler says. His training is being used at a very base level there, he says.


In Poland, They were more interested in it as a counseling tool than an enumerative tool, Cutler says. In Macedonia, they were just interested in counting jobs and identifying them.


Bulgarias economy and employment situation fall somewhere between that of the other two countries, he says.


Cutler has conducted other employment-related training programs and presentations throughout the U.S., but this was his first overseas involvement in such work.


The transition from communism is pretty scary for the people in those countries, Cutler says. Under communism, They were poor, but there was a certain underpinning. They may not have had a lot of (job) choices, but there was a base security there. Their basic needs were met.


The people, though, are hopefuleven in Macedoniathat capitalism will bring about positive outcomes in the long run, he says.


Theres a bit of insecurity, but theres still optimism, Cutler says.