Job skills gap or lack of fit
During the Great Recession and since then, we have heard of a skills gap in the United States, which is partly responsible for low productivity and, by extension, slow economic growth. There seems to be evidence of an employment gap. There are currently 6.2 million job vacancies, compared to 5.6 in 2016; 45% of small businesses can’t find job-ready candidates; and results from a January 2018 survey of 500 top executives found that 92% think the candidate pool is not as trained as it should be.
There are a lot of finger pointing. Some of the main criticisms include:
The education system is outdated and ill-adapted to prepare students for a fluid economy, with lots of math and technical skills.
Employers, both at the corporate and small business levels, are not allocating adequate resources to training and apprenticeship programs, leaving the workforce with poor skills.
There is a growing cultural bias against machine-oriented skills and useful tools in construction, manufacturing, and the trades, discouraging younger workers from choosing those careers.
The rise of automation is creating a demand for more technically competent candidates than the current job market can offer.
Old jobs are becoming obsolete while new ones are being created at a rate the economy cannot keep up with.
Interpersonal skills, such as those that emphasize collaboration, communication, and teamwork, are not acquired enough at home, school, and in the community.
Job creation is so fast and unemployment so low given the strength of the economy that the workforce does not have the time or means to adjust.
The problem is unmotivated workers who don’t want to take menial jobs or work the night shift, or who like drugs more than work, or who are spoiled youngsters used to being given everything.
All of these factors likely play some role in why there are so many open positions. One would think that this is a simple supply and demand problem to remedy. Identify the specific skills most employers need, and then have education and training providers enhance the skills of students and workers to learn and master the required competencies. But apparently this is not so simple.
What strikes me in the research on this topic is that there are virtually no lists of specific skills that are in short supply. We can find the career areas where there is a shortage, for example in nursing, industrial technicians, computer network specialists, etc., but exactly what the elusive skills are seems to be largely a mystery. This suggests to me that there may not be a skills gap at all, but rather a failure in the way people align themselves with the job they are best suited for. In other words, there may be a mismatch between too many workers and employment opportunities.
This lack of fit problem is not new. For the past century or so, it has been a challenge to match larger numbers of workers with burgeoning career options. In fact, the field of professional development grew out of the need to address this problem. What is new, perhaps, is the growing scale and scope of an unprecedented number of potential workers and career opportunities. The extent of guidance, advice and training by schools, businesses, professional associations and other stakeholders to improve the alignment of available labor with job demand may need more attention than has been accessible to date .
If true full employment is to be achieved, and with it the benefits of economic growth and widespread prosperity, then it seems to be in everyone’s interest to insist on refining the processes by which workers can access high-quality advice and training to better deal with job shortages. . Government, education, and business could partner more effectively to forge solutions.
The gap we are facing now may be more shared and engaged than skills.