The skills gap in US – How companies can fill it

The labor market, meanwhile, has steadily bifurcated, with menial low-wage jobs on one end and high-skill, high-wage careers on the other. Technology and competition from emerging markets have undermined those in the middle. Yet at the same time, there’s a skills gap: in the US, nearly two-thirds of companies report having positions for which they cannot find qualified applicants. The problem is especially acute in technology and health care. 

Today we stand on the edge of another disruption. This one is again driven by technology. The technologies that automated millions of routine transaction and production jobs are now rapidly encroaching on higher-skilled-skill interaction jobs as well, that is to say, jobs which require personal interaction, problem solving and a range of critical-thinking skills. The information tools that helped improve productivity are now being used to disaggregate jobs into specialized tasks that can be scheduled down to the hour of a workweek with flexible labor and can increasingly be done remotely.

This process of disaggregation can give rise to new businesses and recruiting models. Websites and online talent-sourcing platforms are proliferating. In some cases, registered workers bid for simple work, such as a few hours of writing merchandising copy for websites. Other platforms offer the services of high-skill professionals or entire teams for projects such as software development.

Because technology changes jobs across sectors and geographies, employers around the world need to rethink whom, where, and how they recruit; how they can use technology to substitute for skills, not just personnel; and how they adapt their ways of working. The jobs the US economy has been creating in the past two years are very different in nature from the ones that were lost in the recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis. The labor market itself is now quite different. Technology is not only automating ever more jobs and increasing the skill gaps for the jobs that remain; it is changing the very nature of work and giving us ever less time to adapt.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at How U.S. companies can fill the skills gap | McKinsey Global Institute | McKinsey & Company.