52% of US companies report difficulty filling jobs.
47% of employers blame prospects’ lack of “hard” job skills or technical skills.
35% of companies cite candidates’ lack of experience.
28% of companies are increasing staff training and development.
Source: Manpower Group
(Wall Street Journal, October 24, 2011): Everybody’s heard the complaints about recruiting lately. Even with unemployment hovering around 9%, companies are grousing that they can’t find skilled workers, and filling a job can take months of hunting.
Employers are quick to lay blame. Schools aren’t giving kids the right kind of training. The government isn’t letting in enough high-skill immigrants. The list goes on and on.
But I believe that the real culprits are the employers themselves.
With an abundance of workers to choose from, employers are demanding more of job candidates than ever before. They want prospective workers to be able to fill a role right away, without any training or ramp-up time.
Bad for Companies, Bad for Economy
In other words, to get a job, you have to have that job already. It’s a Catch-22 situation for workers—and it’s hurting companies and the economy.
To get America’s job engine revving again, companies need to stop pinning so much of the blame on our nation’s education system…
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