Work-ready is used to measure employability levels among the working classes. This is the neoliberal era of human capital accounting, and global business pins its profits and losses on worker knowledge and job skills. Employers do not believe that school-based curriculums are capable of properly preparing future workers; and the paper diploma is viewed by most employers as meaningless when gauging human capital potential for waged labor. Foundational workplace literacy skills are considered essential for success in acquiring a first job in shrinking labor markets. Public policymakers promote work-ready testing as a tool to weed-out future workers who fail to engender positive work habits and dispositions as well. Testing vendors are contracted for the purpose of certifying employability levels of career-bound students. Driving this reform movement are the domesticating narratives of strategic business competitiveness. Yet the discourse of employability testing is tied to the allocation of jobs in scarce times, and further indicates the failure of global capitalism to provide quality work for all.