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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