The Skills Gap 2019

In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussion about the skills gap—the discrepancy between the skills U.S. workers have and the skills required by U.S. businesses to remain globally competitive. Although researchers have worked to understand the existence and nature of such a gap, and although most people—from business leaders to individual contributors—agree that there is a skills gap, little is known about how businesses are addressing the issue, whether those solutions are working and what else needs to be done to prepare for the future of work.

Our research sets out to understand what employers are doing to bridge the skills gap, the effectiveness of those methods, and how industry and job types may play a role. The findings show that employers are making the effort to invest in reskilling workers, to hire from more diverse talent pools and to work with educational institutions to build talent pipelines. However, employers are also reporting that those methods have not been fully effective for their organizations in terms of sourcing, hiring and retaining employees with the skills to do the work.

The skills gap issue is an opportunity for human resource professionals to better understand the skill needs of their organizations and contribute to organizational strategy and success through optimizing planning and understanding how to position their workforce for the future of work. 

Read the full report: Skills Gap 2019

Download the infographic