America May Soon Be Facing It's Largest Labor Shortage in Its History (msn.com)
- Reference: 0184434410
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/0443258/america-may-soon-be-facing-its-largest-labor-shortage-in-its-history
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-recruiters-can-t-find-workers-and-new-grads-can-t-find-jobs-it-s-not-ai/ar-AA27K57y
> Economists warn that the worsening labor problem, due in part to a skills shortage and population shifts, will be vast and reach beyond tech. It "could [2]hobble the American economy for years to come," predicts the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Lightcast, a labor market data company, calls it "the [3]largest labor shortage the country has ever seen." JPMorgan Chase warns of a [4]national security risk from "a pervasive talent deficit that constrains the nation's capacity to build, compete, and protect its interests." There will be shortages in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of nurses, physicians, teachers, engineers, pharmacists, mental health counselors, construction worker and airplane mechanics — jobs AI generally can't do...
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> Among the trends that have been leading to this moment: a mismatch between the careers college graduates are pursuing and the jobs employers are struggling to fill. [5]Far fewer students are majoring in health care fields than are needed to meet demand, for instance. "We have pumped so many young people into business and finance" when what's really in demand are graduates in other fields, [said Ron Hetrick, Lightcast's principal economist]. "It's like a factory producing these workers like widgets, even though society is saying, 'We really don't need them.' And the factory just keeps pumping them out." But the principal reason for the looming workforce shortages is much more basic. A protracted decline in birth rates is coinciding with a record wave of retirements, data shows.
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> From 2024 to 2032, when the last baby boomers sign up for Social Security payments, more than 18 million college-educated workers will leave the labor force while [6]fewer than 14 million enter it , according to the Georgetown center. Meanwhile, even as the number of people with associate and bachelor's degrees falls, the number of jobs requiring them will grow, the center forecasts. That will leave a gap of 4.6 million workers. Lightcast puts [7]the deficit at an even higher 6 million... The effect of population shifts on the supply of talent, with or without degrees, has been compounded by a drop in the proportion of high school graduates choosing to go to college, a sharply reduced rate of immigration, and a growing number of Americans [8]leaving the workforce altogether because of such issues as lack of child care, early retirement, incarceration and substance addiction, according to the Chamber of Commerce.
Three interesting statistics from the article:
U.S. college/university enrollment in 2023 was down by nearly 2 million students since its peak in 2010, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Education Department.
America's low birth rate since 2010 "means the number of college-age Americans is forecast to decline by another 13 percent through 2041."
South Dakota has just 41 workers for every 100 open jobs... while California and nine other states have more workers than jobs, the Chamber of Commerce found.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-recruiters-can-t-find-workers-and-new-grads-can-t-find-jobs-it-s-not-ai/ar-AA27K57y
[2] https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/cew-falling_behind-fr.pdf
[3] https://lightcast.io/resources/blog/rising-storm-press-release-september-17-2024
[4] https://www.jpmorganchase.com/content/dam/jpmorganchase/documents/impact/policy-center-workforce-report.pdf
[5] https://www.niche.com/blog/healthcare-jobs-are-booming-but-where-will-the-workers-come-from/
[6] https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/cew-falling_behind-fr.pdf
[7] https://lightcast.io/resources/research/the-rising-storm
[8] https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage?state=ny
Make the MBAs knife fight- (Score:3)
-to decide which of them has to deport their grandparents to places that have retirement care. The other MBAs will monetize the knife fights through short form videos. Everyone wins!
Re: (Score:2)
During Iron Curtain times, I had an airliner conversation with a retired 1930s-40s emigre who was looking at going back to Poland with his wife for retirement, for low cost of living and especially health care.
The Slashdot title indicates... (Score:4, Insightful)
... that Slashdot could benefit from hiring at least one English major.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, autocorrect, at least in my environment, tends to make the complained-of substitution.
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Actually, that's a good point - I find myself correcting that particular "auto-incorrect" mistake quite often.
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This. Every time I see apostrophe abusers use "it's" incorrectly, I die a little.
Once and for all people: "it's" (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of "it is." "its" is the possessive pronoun, which was intended here.
But alas, it may be too late. Even the Apostrophe Protection Society shut down temporarily in 2019, throwing in the towel. It was revived in 2022 though. I wish the new guard the best of luck.
Re: (Score:2)
> ... Slashdot could benefit from hiring at least one English major.
I think the post of Slashdot editor is more important, and would require at least a [1](modern) Major General [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_General_Song
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think being educated in the works of Chaucer makes one better at spotting mistakes most people learn about by the age of 12.
I think it's (sic) more to do with giving a shit about doing a good job.
Or not.
Is this true? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not an American, but this sounds like the kind of drivel spewed on behalf of big companies that want to be able to hire cheap foreign labour. Rather than paying local resources a fair wage, they want to flood the market with job-seekers and reduce salaries for everyone.
Throw in statements like "fall behind China" and "national security" and decision makers will just eat it up blindly without verifying who is paying the economists / paying for these studies, and what the real motivation is, and just as important - what the actual truth is.
I agree (Score:1)
Any job for which a worker is able to demand more than minimum wage is in shortage.
Re: I agree (Score:2)
In your idea, is the minimum wage a living wage? If yes, how do you define living wage and ensure that the minimum wage does indeed meet that standard over time? How does your idea work in countries without a minimum wage?
Change of Attitude may be Needed (Score:4, Insightful)
> South Dakota has just 41 workers for every 100 open jobs... while California and nine other states have more workers than jobs, the Chamber of Commerce found.
Compare this statement of fact against all this right wing drivel of "liberal hell holes" that everybody wants to leave ASAP. It looks like some regions may have to change their attitude towards educated people, if they want to attract a decent work force.
Then explain the layoffs (Score:3)
Because they layoffs say there's a surplus.
Sick (Score:2)
I'm so sick of this shit. It doesn't matter what your political persuasion is, you've got to admit that this is completely self contradictory:
"shortages in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of nurses, physicians, teachers, engineers, pharmacists, mental health counselors, construction worker and airplane mechanics"
If there is less of something (labor) the value of that thing will increase due to increased demand. It does not matter if they were allocated by government fiat (a communistic thing, funny e
The German disease (Score:3)
This might as well be called the german disease because shills like their bitkom have been spewing this BS relentlessly for way over 15 years now - while salaries in germany have staid the same and way below inflation levels even.
The perpetual shortage of experts with 40 years experience getting paid less than a junior...
The sky is falling (Score:3)
We've been hearing for the last 3 years that graduates can't get jobs, that increasing automation is shrinking the required workforce, that a shrinking population requires far fewer employees. There's always some industry demanding the government find them more employees (before wages are forced upwards).
It's difficult to sympathise with these alarmists.
South dakota (Score:2)
South Dakota is a state full of retirement homes and very few other employment opportunities.
What this data actually means is that investment in new job creation is at an all time low. Having to take care of the aging and dying is not a viable long term jobs strategy.
Experts interviewed by the Washington Post: (Score:2)
The Hechinger Report is the original producer of the article: [1]Source of Funding [hechingerreport.org]
[1] https://hechingerreport.org/supporters/
Oh well (Score:5, Funny)
I guess they'll have to raise salaries. What a shame.
Re: Oh well (Score:5, Funny)
They might have to do the unthinkable and invest in training and education. The horror!
Re: Oh well (Score:4, Insightful)
LOL to you and the GP.
Seriously though, raising salaries and investing in education are both good, but they won't create human beings with the needed skills. Not unless you encourage young people to choose career paths that are in need. It's either that, or bring in more immigrants who have the required training.
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Obviously that is done as part of investing in education. You don't just say, here's more money, you also say these are the skills to learn for jobs that are plentiful.
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How do you think those immigrants get those skills in other countries? Are they randomly birthed with them, perhaps assigned them? Bequeathed, like a royal bloodline?
Are you retarded?
No. There are 3 ways they get them, the same as in the US:
1) earn them
2) buy them
3) fake them
At the very least, they had to have the forethought to acquire them in piece or in farce before applying for the job, unless you're suggesting a very large percentage of India appears to have precognition as well as having a disproporti
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Gen Z were lied to so frequently that if you tell them something is good for them now, they will probably do the opposite. Only slightly joking.
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They MIGHT even have to HIRE!
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There's a cost to increasing salaries. The cost of the product or service will be higher, meaning fewer consumers will have access to it. Also, it may not be profitable at all to produce that. Think about it. If there were car windshield installation costs $1 million. It would make cars unaffordable and only the ultra rich would have it.
The ideal scenario is that salaries are "low" (cost of production), but that low salary will provide enormous buying power (goods are widely available and dirt cheap). We ne
Re:Oh well (Score:5, Interesting)
> There's a cost to increasing salaries. The cost of the product or service will be higher, meaning fewer consumers will have access to it.
This doesn't seem to be a concern when it comes to increasing executive salaries. They could lower some of those and have plenty more money to spend on new workers. Really... "We have pumped so many young people into business and finance" -- No shit, Sherlock. Maybe because the only people making 7 figures in healthcare are the administrators and folks in insurance, not the ones actually practicing medicine. The very long shifts medical careers seem famous for are a good indicator healthcare facilities need to hire more people, but who wants to enter a job with such long hours. Meanwhile the work to be done isn't going down, so everyone has to work longer. It becomes a feedback loop.
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Score:5, Insightful)
We could have been working for the last decade or 3 to make this a great country to have and raise children in but nah, we decided to have the most expensive healthcare system in the world (by far), no provisions for childcare for workers, no maturnity leave laws, no social safty net that would make having children less risky and very expensive housing.
Instead we were politically focused on getting rid of immigrants, which we'll eventually need to import more of because we don't have any young people because we were too focused on getting rid of immigrants to make life stable & happy enough for anyone to have babies.
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Man, they really need to pass a law or something to make it affordable to have healthcare in this country, man. Someone should run on that premise. It's something long past having not been tried.
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Yes, I intentionally don't go to work because I'm too busy going to the Illegal Immigrant Volunteer Slaughterhouse. This means I don't have the money to feed my family or fuck hot chicks. It's a sacrifice we all have to make for the future of our children, though!