Skills Gap

Canada – Employers struggle to find skilled workers

Many Canadian employers are struggling to find the right talent for specific jobs amid a growing skills shortage, says Randstad Canada’s latest Global Workmonitor report released Wednesday. The report described Canada’s growing shortage of highly skilled labour as critical and predicted shortages in the manufacturing, automation and energy and utility industries with Calgary one of … Continue reading →

Nigeria – Boosting Graduates’ Employability Skills

Following the persistent outcry about the poor quality of Nigerian graduates, who are said to be unemployable, Poise Graduate Finishing School, a subsidiary of Poise Nigeria, has introduced an employability skills certification programme known as PSENSE. The PSENSE test, which was designed in collaboration with Biddle Consulting, US, is aimed at solving the recruitment challenges … Continue reading →

East Africa – Skills Gap in oil industry

Nairobi – A shortage of trained oil and gas workers in East Africa is slowing development of new fields following a series of major discoveries and may force governments to relax rules requiring companies to employ local people. Governments are now investing in programmes to train skilled oil and gas workers, but they are hampered … Continue reading →

Indiana CoC – Targeting Middle Skills Gap

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce has launched a website to help bridge the so-called “middle skills” gap. Vice President of Education and Workforce Development Derek Redelman tells Inside INdiana Business he regularly hears from companies seeking employees to fill openings requiring more than a high school diploma, but less than a four-year college degree and … Continue reading →

Skills Gap – Illinois – Widening on factory floors

Say “skills gap” to any manufacturer, and invariably they’ll respond with the number 600,000. That’s the gaping hole of unfilled jobs at U.S. manufacturers—for Illinois, estimates point to 30,000 unfilled jobs. The talent shortfall carries serious consequences. In a Manufacturing Institute 2011 skills gap report surveying more than 1,100 U.S. manufacturers, 74 percent of respondents … Continue reading →

ManpowerGroup’s Talent Shortage Survey : Talent is becoming the key competitive differentiator

“ManpowerGroup surveyed nearly 40,000 employers across 39 countries and territories during the first quarter of 2011 to gauge the impact of talent shortages on the global labor market. The results of the sixth annual Talent Shortage Survey reveal a modest upward trend in the percentage of employers having difficulty filling positions due to lack of … Continue reading →

Skills Gap – Middle-skill Workers – New England: The Boston Fed calls for Ensuring an Adequate Supply

“The supply of middle-skill workers will be constrained in the future” write Julia Dennett and Alicia Sasser Modestino in The Middle-Skills Gap: Ensuring an Adequate Supply of Skilled Labor in Northern and Southern New England, published by New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on bostonfed.org.  Choosen excerpts by JMM  … Continue reading →

UK – Vocational Education – Skills Gap: Economic Recovery Depends on Balance Between Academic and Vocational Ed

“Big companies believe the UK’s economic recovery may depend on improving the balance between academic and vocational education” writes James Taylor in We need more investment in practical skills, say employers on managementtoday.co.uk. “87% of the large firms questioned by education services provider Pearson said the UK economic recovery was at risk without more investment … Continue reading →

Skills Gap: Global Mobilization of People or Talent War (video)?

OECD – Inequality – Skills Gap : Increasing Earnings Gap due to a Skills Gap Calls for Up-skilling

“Over the two decades to the onset of the global economic crisis, real disposable household incomes increased in all OECD countries, by 1.7% a year, on average. In a large majority of OECD countries, household incomes of the top 10% grew faster than those of the poorest 10%, leading to widening income inequality” and “increases … Continue reading →

South Africa – The ICT skills gap

South Africa’s ICT industry will face a serious skills crunch in the future unless it focuses on developing its young professionals. Matumane Tshabalala, technology solutions manager of EMC Southern Africa, says the skills are not there for high-end solution provisioning. Depending on who you speak to, the South African ICT industry faces a critical shortfall … Continue reading →

Italy – Brain Drain – The Education Employment Gap (video)

Nigeria – Vocational and Technical Education and The Skills Gap

Lack of technical education translates to an annual loss of almost a billion naira to the economy The lack of skilled manpower in Nigeria is aptly portrayed by the experience of Kazeem Adesina, a youth corps member deployed to a construction firm. “I considered myself lucky because I studied Civil Engineering and was posted to … Continue reading →

Job Gap – Youth Unemploment: An Interview with ILO Economist Sara Elder (video)

An Interview with ILO Economist Sara Elder

Skills Gap in the US Economy (video)