Marketplace Today Blog

It may seem unusual in an era of high unemployment to be talking about a worldwide labor shortage.

But Edward E. Gordon, Ph.D., sees the U.S. as being potentially unable to compete with other countries because of problems with the American workforce.

Gordon, author of Winning the Global Talent Showdown and The 2010 Meltdown: Solving the Impending Jobs Crisis, was the keynote speaker at Business Innovation 2009, presented by the Wausau Region Chamber.

In an era of unemployment heading toward 10 percent, the U.S. has 1 million to 3 million vacant jobs, with 75 percent of those jobs technology-based, Gordon said. “We don’t have a labor shortage in this country; we have a talent shortage in this country,” he said.

Gordon sees jobs in the early 21st century as caught between two worlds: the world of mass production, and cyberspace.

“Within the next 10 years, we will see more technology developed than in the past 50,” he said. “Change is so speeded up that we already see the present only when it’s disappearing.”

In what Gordon calls “the cybermental age,” people’s most marketable skills will be their knowledge. The U.S. unemployment rate of 9.7 percent as of August broke down this way on educational levels:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher: 4.7 percent.
• Associate degree, certificate or apprenticeship: 8.2 percent.
• High school diploma: 9.7 percent.
• High school dropout: 15.6 percent.

Gordon said 62 percent of jobs today are high-pay high-skills jobs, with that percentage eventually increasing to 74 percent by 2020. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of vacant jobs will increase to 12 million to 24 million.

The problem: While 123 million high-skill workers are needed for those high-paying jobs, Gordon estimates only 50 million Americans are technologically skilled enough for those jobs. In contrast, low-skill low-pay jobs will decrease to 44 million, while 150 million Americans are technologically skilled enough for those jobs.

What would that kind of world look like? Gordon gave some predictions:

• Between 10 and 20 percent of U.S. businesses would close.
• Quality of products and services would decline as businesses hire unqualified employees.
• Technical services would be rationed.
• More high-skill jobs would leave the U.S. in search of high-skill foreign workers.
• The U.S. would lose dominance in information technology, aerospace and other high-tech industries.
• Emerging high-tech industries would locate outside the U.S.
• More U.S. businesses would be owned by foreigners.
• “Middle-class” jobs would disappear.
• The U.S. would become a two-class society: professionals and managers, and low-skill low-wage workers.
• The U.S. standard of living would decline.

“We like technology, we use technology, and now technology is going to require more of us,” said Gordon. The U.S. needs to “reinvent the education-to-employment system. The education-to-employment system is broken — that’s an issue right now.

“In the global economy, it’s going to be the workforce in this state that will determine whether you survive in a global economy. We’re reaching a crisis level of unemployable people. Some even have college degrees. If we do nothing by 2020, we will look a lot like Great Britain.”

The problem, according to Gordon, is that, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 63 percent of high school students had skill levels of “basic” or worse, with only 35 percent scoring “proficient” — numbers that are better than national averages. He said the current generation of U.S. workers are not sufficiently educated “for the age we’ve created — the generation retiring is better educated than the generation that follows.”

While the U.S. has been able to import enough workers of high educational achievement, to cover lower U.S. birth rates and educational achievement, those workers are now returning to their home countries.

“Technology by itself and software by itself isn’t going to innovate,” said Gordon. “It’s people that are going to innovate, because they adapt technology.”

Areas that can “ramp up the education-to-employment system will thrive over the next 10 years, and those who don’t will be left behind,” he said.

The answer, according to Gordon, is organizations that combine the efforts of the public sector and the private sector — chambers of commerce, economic development organizations, workforce development boards, higher education and other organizations — to prepare better trained workers for an evolving workplace and economy. Such umbrella organizations are intended to “build bridges of connectivity, and eliminate waste, and fill in the gaps” without allowing one group to dominate.

“Change is occurring so rapidly within the cybermental age ... we need to get in kids’ minds what careers are all about, and update ourselves with lifelong learning,” he said. “This is a capitalist country. If countries can’t compete in a global marketplace, companies will go out of business. Taxes won’t be paid.

“There are other opportunities if you seize upon them. I specialize in working with small communities, because I think this is where the revolution will start, rather than in large cities.”

Gordon believes change will occur in Wisconsin thanks to its Progressive Era roots.

“Are you more afraid of change, or are you more afraid of poverty?” he said. “I expect Wisconsin is going to lead the nation in this. People don’t want to live in poverty; they don’t want to see the middle class pushed into the lower class due to lack of economic opportunity.”