For any of us who have tried to hire the right person with the requisite skills to fill the talent gaps within our organizations, knows how difficult this task is becoming. Those that would fit in nicely with the corporate culture often don't have the skills, experience, and education to do the job. Conversely, very qualified and talented people are often lacking the communication and business skill side needed to be effective in their roles.
And it looks like things are only going to get worse.
The World Economic Forum has put out a research paper titled ,'Global Talent Risk-Seven Responses', which contains some frightening statistics:
The talent gap is a challenge for employers everywhere. To sustain economic growth, by 2030 the United States will need to add more than 25 million workers and Western Europe will need to add more than 45 million workers.
There are an estimated 214 million international migrants worldwide. Collectively they would make up the world's fifth largest nation.
Migration is not only a South-to-North phenomenon; in fact, 40% of the world's migrants move from one developing country to another.
Foreign nationals are authors of the majority of patent applications filed by many US companies:
65% at Merck and
64% at GE and 60% at Cisco.
Foreign-born workers with university or equivalent qualifications make up just 2% of the European labour market, compared with 4.5% in the United States, 8% in Australia and nearly 10% in Canada.
With 45 million new entrants in the global job market annually – most of them young – 300 million new jobs will be needed by 2015 to keep pace with the growth in the labour force.
Employability will continue to be a huge problem worldwide. Because of the uneven quality of education systems, only
25% of Indian and 20% of Russian professionals are currently considered employable by multinationals.
Even China faces long term talent shortages. The number of those aged 60 and older is expanding rapidly, already forming 12.5% of the nation's population.
WEF offers 7 responses to these challenges:
1. Introduce strategic workforce planning
2. Ease migration
3. Foster brain circulation (bring home skills that professionals/students have learned abroad)
4. Increase employability (revamp training and education programs)
5. Develop a talent 'trellis' (train for the jobs of the future)
6. Encourage temporary and virtual mobility
7. Extend the pool (older professionals, women, immigrants)
Check out the full study at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/PS_WEF_GlobalTalentRisk_Report_2011.pdf
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