November 11, 2011

Lack of jobs isn't the No. 1 problem

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Jobs, jobs, jobs. As we head into the 2012 election year, it's an absolute certainty that the dominant theme in every local, statewide and national political race is going to be which candidates have the best ideas and/or track record of creating new job opportunities for Americans.

Is this really the core problem we're facing as a country, however? Or even here in Washington state?

Don't get me wrong; the creation of thousands of new employment opportunities would be a wonderful thing and would go a long way toward relieving the economic malaise we're facing as a society. But having worked on the front lines of the job market for the past 18 years, I don't think people realize that there actually are tons of good jobs out there, going unfilled, even as we speak.

Don't believe me? Try visiting job search engine Simply Hired and running a quick search using the term "WA" in the "Location" box. You'll get more than 125,000 postings, behind each of which is an employer begging for the right candidate.

Now, I hear some of you saying: "But that number isn't really accurate. Some of those jobs likely are just companies fishing for résumés, aren't 'real' openings, or are duplications of the same position multiple times."

That might be the case for some (but probably no more than 20 percent) of the listings if you were to spot-check the data. What's more, anybody arguing that the number of open positions is inflated must, in fairness, also concede that not all open positions are actually advertised.

According to most experts, including the leading career-research firm Challenger, Grey and Christmas, more than 80 percent of all job openings never actually see the light of day in the form of a help-wanted ad of any kind.

So what's the real number? Even with this fuzzy math, it seems that we're sitting on hundreds of thousands of open positions in Washington, waiting for somebody to fill them.

Long story short, and political expediency aside, my point is simply that the common refrain of "we need more jobs" glosses over a huge part of the problem -- the growing gap between the skills companies need and what many candidates have to offer in terms of qualifications.

This is the friction point we need to do a better societal job of addressing: providing better training in marketable job skills to those who desire it, while simultaneously encouraging (and incenting) employers to loosen up on their demands for impossible perfection in terms of their requirements.

Let's break the deadlock -- and get back to the concept of training, investing and betting on hard-working professionals eager to make something of themselves and learn something new!

Matt Youngquist is the president and founder of Career Horizons, a career counseling and corporate outplacement firm. Email him at myoungquist@nwjobs.com.

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education and training, market trends

4 Comments

Moderate Backlash on November 13, 2011 9:50 AM | Reply

Whatever happened to on-the-job training?

Matt Youngquist replied to comment from Moderate Backlash

Great question! I think the concept of on-the-job training has largely evaporated in the last 10 years, sadly, due to the speed at which job requirements are changing and employer concerns about whether they'll reap enough "ROI" from bringing somebody aboard who can't immediately make a productive contribution. I'd love to see society address this in some fashion and incent companies to provide more apprenticeship and on-the-job training opportunities. Until this happens, though, I think many professionals will have to assume responsibility, themselves, for staying current in their fields and for studying the market to see which skills/jobs are growing in demand -- versus others that may be losing steam. No easy answers, but as I wrote, this 'gap" is a huge part of the problem right now, in my opinion...

Eric Fowler on November 15, 2011 2:04 PM | Reply

In other news, the UW is accepting thousands of foreign students into science and engineering programs, while Americans are sidelined ... to become the undertrained serfs of tomorrow ...

Krys replied to comment from Eric Fowler

International students pay rediculously high tuition with no goverment subsidies or in state discounts. WA state government has been reducing their contributions to the State Universities in their bid to cut the budget. WHich means that UW gets less money for in state students, in order to survive they have to accept more international students to help foot the bill for the instate students that get a in state discount.

Basically we as WA decided to underfund our universities and forced them to prioritize educating foreigners to survive.

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