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The U.S. workforce is in serious trouble, with a growing mismatch between the talents that young workers joining the workforce have to offer and the talents that employers need. The problems go far beyond a potential worker shortage, warns a new report from investment banking giant JPMorganChase, and the situation may even pose a national security risk. The implication for your company is clear: if your business is in one of the most affected industries, you may find it harder than before to find and recruit new talent.
The new report says that three in four U.S. companies are struggling to find qualified workers. Worse, four in 10 adults lack basic digital skills needed for the typical workplace. Given how our society is increasingly digital, that the PC revolution began back in the 1980s and looking at the growing adoption rates of automation and tech like AI, this latter statistic is pretty startling. Gen-Z is considered to be the first “digitally native” generation, so at least they can reverse-mentor their older colleagues, but the fact that nearly half of workers don’t even have basic computer skills should be concerning for employers large and small.
The qualifications gap isn’t evenly spread, JPMorgan’s report shows. The most affected sectors are semiconductor manufacturing, the defense industry, energy and AI. Reporting on the study, Newsweek notes that the bank highlights the long-term implications of these shortages, as other allies invest more heavily into STEM and technical training initiatives and rivals like China inject vast sums into training their population. JPMorgan estimated that the U.S. technology workforce is expected to grow at twice the rate of the overall workforce over the next 10 years, which makes the skills gap a growing problem: if workers aren’t leaving education with the appropriate skills, and existing workers don’t reskill or upskill, then many of these jobs may go unfilled, threatening expansion and innovation in this critical sector.
The fact that AI skills is present in the list is unsurprising: the sector is growing fast. The AI talent wars that played out this summer as top U.S. names tried to poach superstar researchers from each other for vast sums of money showed exactly how competitive the AI skills market is. But there’s also evidence that there’s a gap between the expectations CEOs have of AI and the skills and experiences their workers have—a gap that could be closed by education and retraining, even though many companies are proving slow at investing in this kind of schooling.
JPMorgan’s list of the most affected industries is notably science-heavy. This may be a problem in the current political climate where some commentators note that the value of scientific expertise is under siege, with increasing anti-science rhetoric in the workplace and disinformation and misinformation are on the rise—potentially shaping the thinking of young people entering the education systems. To counter this issue, the bank calls for an expansion in federal and state policies to modernize the education pipeline and encourage training programs and apprenticeships.
This may be a tricky problem, though, as many young people are thought to be turning toward job sectors where AI can’t threaten their long-term employability, including hands-on work like plumbing, being an electrician and other trade jobs.
Newsweek also notes the report came not long after President Trump upset part of his political base by suggesting that talented foreign workers may be needed to fill the skills gap, particularly in manufacturing facilities set up by foreign firms on U.S. soil. But other reports note that Trump’s pro-U.S. policies to try to promote manufacturing of semiconductors and his anti-immigration thinking and tariff policies form a political Gordian knot.
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Kit Eaton
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