What's New
Book News
Winning the Global Talent Showdown: How Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline
(Berrett-Koehler, April 2009)
Ed Gordon's latest book is on the future of talent between 2010 and 2020. He surveys the sorry state of the world talent pipeline with separate chapters on the Americas, Asia and Europe. But this is a book fundamentally about solutions highlighting innovative partnerships in local communities that are reinventing the education-to-employment system and education and training for current workers.
Click here for an executive summary of Winning the Global Talent Showdown.
Hear or Download an Ed Gordon interview with Wayne Hurlbert on Winning the Global Talent Showdown.
Order now from your favorite bookseller, Berrett-Koehler, or Amazon.com.
Rowman and Littlefield has just published a paperback edition of The 2010 Meltdown: Solving the Impending Jobs Crisis.
A Korean language edition of The 2010 Meltdown is now available produced by Somdol Publishing. The Korean edition is entitled: The 2010 Meltdown: The People Paradox.
Future Presentations
July 18, 2009
Keynote Presentation: "Taming the Global Talent Revolution"
2009 Annual International Conference
The World Future Society
Chicago Hilton
Chicago, Illinois
August 20, 2009
Keynote Address: "Winning the Global Talent Showdown"
Convocation
Elgin Community College
Elgin, Illinois
September 11 & 12, 2009
Presentation: "Taming the Talent Revolution" and Discussion Facilitator
South Central Michigan Works!
Annual Meeting
Mt. Pleasant, Michigan
September 23, 2009
Keynote Address: "Taming the Talent Revolution"
Workshop: "Rebuilding the Jobs Pipeline"
Business Innovation 2009
The Wausau Region Chamber of Commerce
Wausau, Wisconsin
Recent Articles
Current recession masks imminent talent gap
Rising unemployment doesn’t tell the whole story
By Edward Gordon
The recession certainly has spurred massive job losses. Overall, 3.6 million Americans lost jobs in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. However, what is seldom reported is that 2.9 million workers also found new jobs and that many good jobs remain unfilled.
The problem: Too many job seekers lack the necessary higher levels of literacy, experience, education and specialized career training needed for an increasingly sophisticated world of work. At the beginning of 2008, the National Federation of Independent Business revealed that 82% of its members were having trouble finding qualified applicants. As a result, 34% reported having one or more unfilled positions. By early 2009, those organizations still were reporting more than 1 million vacant positions.
What is behind the deep talent shortages confronting the United States and much of the world? Four major economic and cultural forces have combined to produce the talent showdown: worldwide demographic shifts, globalization, a broken talent prep system and generational work/life cultural differences.
'A senior tsunami'
By 2020, the number of people over age 60 in the United States, Japan and Europe will equal the working-age population, according to projections by the United Nations.
In the United States, baby boomers are reaching age 60 at the rate of more than 8,000 per day. What that means is that the number of retired people in the United States will increase 120% over the next 35 years.
William H. Frey, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, characterizes that graying of America as “a senior tsunami.”
A flat world in a square hole
Over the last 20 years, we have witnessed the sudden entry into the global economy of two vast new sources of hardworking, cheap labor: China and India. China alone has 50% more people than the combined population of today’s advanced nations.
However, demographics alone do not predict economic destiny. According to a 2005 McKinsey & Co. report, fewer than 10% of the 1.6 million young Chinese engineering graduates have the skills needed to work for foreign organizations in fields such as engineering, finance and the life sciences. "[China] is a colossus with feet of clay," says Martin Wolf, a Financial Times economist.
And while 3 million students graduate from India’s universities each year, only a fraction have skills suitable for world-class employment. A 2007 study by Indian trade association NASSCOM found that only about 25% of engineering graduates and 10% to 15% of general college graduates reach acceptable international business skill standards. A 2006 McKinsey & Co. report confirmed that trend, predicting that India’s information technology industry will face a shortage of 500,000 workers by 2010.
Two additional drivers are contributing to overall talent shortages:
- The current U.S. talent-prep system is not adequately preparing our workforce. Indeed, according to Robert Lerman of The Urban Institute, more than 40% of workers now entering the workforce have not earned any college credits. Furthermore, record numbers of workers with college degrees are not choosing so-called STEM careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
- Generational work/life cultural differences also have emerged as significant forces. Example: A 2004 study commissioned by the American Business Collaboration found that most workers in Generations X and Y consider work "secondary to their lives outside the office."
Taking action
The United States is at a critical crossroad. Our economic future depends on the action we take now to reinvent the education-to-employment system. Many community-based organizations that foster business-education partnerships already have begun across the United States. However, when the recession ends, they will need broader business support to meet the increasing talent demands of a knowledge-based economy.
Edward Gordon's new book Winning the Global Talent Showdown: How Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline offers dozens of real-world solutions for reinventing the talent-creation system. Go to www.imperialcorp.com for more information.
Copyright © 2009 Douglas Publications LLC, all rights reserved. Go to www.trendletter.com for more information.
The Technology Paradox: A Digital Economy Without a STEM Workforce, Today's Engineer, March 2009.
Ed Gordon analyzes why too few young Americans are entering the scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) professions so vital to the future growth of the U.S. economy. Drawing upon material from Winning the Global Talent Showdown, he outlines how businesses and communities can partner to address this shortfall by reinventing local education-to-employment systems.
Read The Technology Paradox
New Trends in Talent Creation, TrainingMag, June 2009.
Future U.S. growth will depend upon building a knowledge economy. Ed Gordon explores new business perspectives on unlocking employees' potential for innovation through training and life-long learning.
Read Talent Creation
Retiring Retirement: Mastering the Workforce Generation Gap, Benefits & Compensation Digest, July 2007.
In view of the workforce talent deficit now on the horizon as baby-boomers begin to retire, Ed Gordon explores HR policies for recruiting and retaining skilled workers. Varying strategies are outlined for the different needs and priorities of baby boomers and Generations X and Y.
Reprinted with permission from Benefits & Compensation Digest, Volume 44, Number 7, July 2007 pages 1, 16-20 published by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (www.ifebp.org), Brookfield, WI. Statements or opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of the International Foundation, its officers, directors, or staff. No further transmission or electronic distribution of this material is permitted. All rights reserved.
The Global Search for Talent, MWorld, Spring 2007.
This article focuses on the pitfalls of relying on China to fill U.S. deficits of workers for high-skill technical jobs. While China's economy is rapidly expanding today, its future development hinges on overcoming serious challenges in education, demographics, banking, and corruption. Current U.S. corporate reliance on outsourcing goods and services for quick profits faces twin perils -- China's uncertain parth toward a free and open marketplace, and the possibility that U.S. companies may lose the ability to produce key goods and services on their own.
Interviews
Read "Workforce Crisis," an Ed Gordon interview on the major culture changes needed to keep the American economy competitive.
A Margaret LeBrun editorial in Marketplace Magazine features Ed Gordon's comments on preparing youth for future careers. Read "Preparing Our Kids for a Global Economy."
In "Is Offshoring the Answer to the 2010 Labor Shortage,"
Ed Gordon answers three questions on this topic. See
IT Business Edge.
