When looking at the global gap between what jobs employers need to fill and the skilled workers available to fill them, there are some significant differences between countries. While the US workers will grow 10% by 2050, the population will shrink 26% in South Korea, 28% in Japan, and 28% in Italy and Germany, and 21% in Russia and China.
- Germany: shrinking population (100,000 people/year) and failing educational system separating those students who are best fit for the trades and those who are college bound.
- China: economic challenge to move from cheap, mass-produced goods to higher-priced goods requiring more highly skilled workers, yet don’t have the educational system to provide those skills.
- India: a thriving economy (7% rise in GDP) with a greatly expanded university system becoming diploma mills.
- United States: impending retirements of 20 million baby boomers and shortage of skilled workers requires a revamped education-to-employment delivery system.
- South Korea: an economic success with highly educated population, yet many are in boot camp to help them break their addiction to computer games.
(Source: Edward Gordon, Future Jobs: Solving the Employment and Skills Crisis)
75% of the world’s highly skilled immigrants live in US, UK, Canada and Australia (Source: World Bank). In the US, 70% of Silicon Valley engineers are foreign-born (Source: WSJ).
Where and how does your organization fill skill gaps?
