shortage of talent
The Workforce Paradox: We're Short on Talent, Not Just Jobs
by Tammy Erickson. It's counterproductive to discuss whether we have a talent shortage or high unemployment. We have both. Even as the economy recovers, the Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisors earlier this year projected that the unemployment rate would stay well above 6% until 2015.
At the same time, the argument that my coauthors and I put forth in 2006 in our book Workforce Crisis remains true: There are significant, growing shortages of skills in critical job categories. The recession may have obscured this trend for a couple years, but it marches steadily onward. Even at the height of the recession in 2009, U.S. companies were struggling to fill certain kinds of positions.
These two seemingly paradoxical conditions exist because many of the jobs now being created require skills that the workforce doesn't possess in sufficient quantity. This structural mismatch will be difficult to overcome, even in a climate of growth. The "workforce crisis" is a painful reality in both directions — for companies looking for the talent required to grow and, of course, for the individuals struggling to find jobs in a shrinking pool.