THE WAR FOR TALENT
HOW LEADING STATES ATTRACT THE BEST WORKERS
Before today’s record-low unemployment rates, the market for talent in the U.S. was already tight. Now the situation has intensified. In fact, by 2030, America could miss out on $1.7 trillion in revenue—or roughly 6% of the entire economy—due to labor shortages, according to “Future of Work: The Global Talent Crunch, 2018,” a recent study by Korn Ferry.
The impact of this talent scarcity is widespread. Shortages of key skills have reached crisis proportions in many industries, including manufacturing, technology, and financial services. In manufacturing alone, Korn Ferry projects a deficit of 383,000 highly skilled workers in just a little over a decade.
The study states this threat is “driven by a shortage of skills rather than a shortage of people.” It calls for urgent action by governments and organizations to educate, train, and upskill their workforces.
A common misconception is that technology-driven productivity gains will eventually alleviate this shortage. But such change actually compounds the problem by increasing the complexity of work—widening the productivity gap between high-performing employees and the rest of the pack by as much as eight times. That was a key finding in a recent
update of McKinsey & Company’s seminal work, The War for Talent. So while automation may well displace some workers, strong demand for top talent will persist.
Amount OF REVENUE America could miss out on by 2030 due to labor shortages
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Demographic shifts are making the war for talent even more hard-fought. The Pew Research Center projects that this year, millennials will surpass baby boomers as the largest living adult generation in the
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