Hi everyone. This is Ira Wolfe, and I’m back with my good friend, Dr.Edward Gordon for the second of our four-part webinar series, talking about the future of employment. Today’s topic is a good one. Even the mere mention of it seems to bring a smile to faces, although not in a good way. The Failure of Current Talent Strategies tends to ignite one of the “duh, do you think” moments. During this webinar, we’ll be talking about why current talent strategies are failing fast and begin to explore how organizations must respond going forward.
During this webinar, we’re going to shoot down a popular myth that our record-high unemployment means that skill shortages are gone, that finding top talent won’t be a problem anymore. On the contrary, COVID-19 merely accelerated disruptive change. And the changes that Ed and I have been talking about for over two decades seemed to combust spontaneously over a few days in the early Spring 2020. What we forecast for 2030 and even 2025 became real for millions of workers and thousands of companies. The pandemic didn’t just accelerate job skill shortages but exacerbated and intensified the problem for people looking for jobs and companies seeking qualified and skilled workers.
Here’s one example. Our healthcare delivery model was built on people going to an office or facility. Then overnight, many office visits and interactions went digital. Telehealth and telemedicine use skyrocketed. Unfortunately far too many healthcare providers were unprepared, exposing yet another shortage of healthcare-related skills. The pandemic is also burning out first responders and providers at an alarming rate, exacerbating shortages in an industry already struggling to find enough skilled workers.
A few talking points shared by Ed and me during the webinar:
- There are 102 million people that are unemployed. These include people that have given up looking, people who are being paid through PPP but may eventually lose their jobs, and those that already filed for unemployment insurance.
- The longer the pandemic goes on before we have a vaccine, and the greater the number of people that get sick and die, the weaker the workforce will become and the more time it will take to recover.
- It took 80+ years for 50% of the U.S. population to adopt the automobile, 50+ years for electricity, 25 years for the personal computer, and only 10 years for the cellphone. Can you imagine how quickly Zoom was adopted!
- The U.S. Labor Force growth is 1/5 of what it was in 1970-1980, and 1/3 of what it was in 1990-2000.
- Labor-intensive production jobs will decline from 60% of the total job market in 1980 to 15% in 2020 while high tech production jobs increased from 0% in 1980 to more than 50% in 2020.
Want more?
What’s next for our post-pandemic recovery?
What’s the solution?
Watch the replay below!
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