Thrive: The Skills Imperative - Power Systems Engineering ...

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Council on Competitiveness The Skills Imperative
Skills Strategies for
the Future
America must be more strategic about charting the path of future opportunities for workers,
prioritizing around skills that do not offshore easily and are hard-to-replicate, that enable a faster
pace of innovation, and that are emerging with new technologies and industries. Key areas of
opportunity for the future prosperity of America’s workers include:
• Untapped Opportunities
• Service Economy Skills
• The Innovation Advantage
• Skills for Sustainability
Untapped Opportunities
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that between 40 percent and 45 percent of all job openings
in the economy through 2014 will be in middle-skilled occupations, compared to one-third in high-skilled
occupations and 22 percent in low-skilled service occupations. 11 As professor Harry Holzer of the Georgetown
University Public Policy Institute observes, many of these jobs do not offshore easily and pay relatively
well. And a number of these occupations face critical shortfalls in skilled workers. 12
Two trends affect this job category significantly. Retiring baby boomers will create large vacancies in the
low- to middle-skilled jobs. And immigrants are likely to fill the bottom- and top-skilled jobs more easily than
those in the middle. Together, these trends will leave growing shortages of workers for middle-skilled jobs—
those that require postsecondary education and training, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. 13