Sobering Thoughts on the U.S. Labor Market

Every day I read through dozens of Google Alerts, RSS feeds, emails
and newsletters — not to mention the growing pile of books that I’ve
started but haven’t finished.  Inevitably, I find myself highlighting
provocative comments and compelling trends and factoids that I might use
in an upcoming article, blog or newsletter. Most of the time, they just
get buried under the next deluge of information before I’ve had a
chance to lace them together into some coherent message.

And then it hit me. Why not write a weekly column of just random
thoughts that I’ve collected during the previous week about Workforce
Trends?  And why not follow the newest trend, made popular by Twitter, of saying whatever you have
to say in 140 characters or less? So here goes — my first post of random
thoughts, all less than 140 characters.

There is a finite pool of talent
worldwide. Support for our technological and physical infrastructure is
in short supply.

Technology has increased its pace whereas
educational advancement and talent creation have slowed down.

An obsolete 20th century
education-to-employment system can no longer cope with the realities of a
21st century global labor market.

40% of workers in the United States and
Canada have basic workforce education skill deficiencies.

Only 25% of America’s current eligible
workers comfortably meet the new job criteria.

About 95 million adults are reading at or
below the 8th grade level of comprehension, disqualifying
them for most well-paying jobs.

More than 90 million U.S. workers
currently lack the reading, writing and math skills to do their jobs
properly.

Compare this to Brazil, where 88% of
adults and 97% of youth are literate and 70% of students complete high
school.

Although 64% of high schools graduating
seniors enter some form of post-secondary education, only 25% graduate
with a college degree.

15% of U.S. high schools produce 50% of
all the dropouts.

Young people are eager consumers of
technology, but not interested in working in technology careers.

Recruiting, retaining and developing
skilled people will become so challenging that many businesses will be
forced out of existence.

Computers did not cause mass
unemployment, but they did create a major upheaval in the nature of
work.

75% of U.S. jobs will require both a good
liberal-arts-based general education plus post secondary technical
training.

The current education-to-employment
bureaucracy chokes the innovation and change we need.

Forget Frederick Taylor’s
stopwatch management
. Start treating people like “brain workers.”

… it seems that the world will end, not
with an explosion, but with a slow grinding halt as everything just
stops working. A. Brown

We live in a moment in history when
change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is
already disappearing. R.D. Laing

Most of these random throughts were highlights from “Winning
The Global Talent Showdown
” by Edward Gordon. Ed will be my guest
on my radio show, Workforce
Trends
, on June 16 at 11AM EDT. Tune in!

Based on my random thoughts for this week, I must ask: Are employers
underestimating the complexity and pace of change? What do you think?

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