Job shortage or talent crunch? Or BOTH?

[Eric Garland]

Here's a topic I am exploring right now - love to hear your views.

For some time we have been tracking the future trend of talent crisis, which should hit as populations age and businesses head for niches to maintain profitability.

At the same time, we are in a crisis of unemployment, where millions are being left out of the labor markets. The official stats say 8.1%, but the real number could be as high as 15%, and climbing.

Question: will the current economic crisis blunt the effect of the talent crisis since people can't afford to retire, or is the demographic wave going to hit regardless? And could both happen at the same time?

The Competitive Futures Steep Report Talent Crunch

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[James Lee]

This is good stuff, and worth a read. If I understand you correctly, the talent crunch is largely demographically driven, but compounded by global demand and increased specialization.

One aspect of the labor crunch is that it is already difficult to hire for many positions without going to migrant labor (cleaning, cooking, manual labor, etc.)

Unemployment is largely representative of a mismatch be skills available and skills demanded. This is bound to increase during periods of structural economic change. There is less need for factory workers in a post-industrial economy. (So, do we really need to build more factories?) It is in this degree of flexibility in which Gen Y will excel.

A paradigm shift that may be coming ahead is the substitutability of artificial knowledge for human knowledge. Here, I am thinking about a bank that has fired 30 financial analysts in favor of a quantitatively driven model (and yes, the bank is still in business...)

[Eric Garland]

The Bosnian unemployment rate stands at 43%. Nothing like the rich mix of high unemployment, young men, firearms, and Balkan nations to make for a good time!

Overall, I have heard the fallacious argument that the knowledge economy means everybody will work in front of a Mac laptop, and China and India will do all the work. Some indicators say that U-6 unemployment in America will be 20% before year's end. We will then see the structural effect of unemployment on society.

Add this to the eventual rapid inflation...and we're going to have a party.