Anyone With a Smartphone Should Have a Smart Job
Date Posted: May 31, 2017
Posted In: Organizations, Workforce,
by Zoë Baird, CEO and President, Markle Foundation
Job openings are at near-record high levels. There are 5.7 million jobs across the country right now that are unfilled. At the same time, too many Americans are frustrated by a lack of economic opportunity. Better wages and career growth are still rarities. It’s clear that yesterday’s workforce strategies do not fit today’s economy.
Everyone who has a smartphone should be able to have a smart career.
A smart career requires skills that go beyond those needed in the past. While America’s transition to the digital economy has brought tremendous opportunity for some, it also has shattered traditional career paths for others. For the nearly seven out of ten Americans without a college degree, the effects of this transition are even more acute. Today, if your highest level of educational attainment is a high school diploma, there are 7.3 million fewer jobs than there were in 1989.
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Americans all across the country recognize that something isn’t working. In a telling poll released just before the election by the Pew Research Center in association with the Markle Foundation, 65 percent of respondents said good jobs are difficult to find where they live, and 63 percent said there is less job security now than 20 to 30 years ago.
For job-seekers, employers, and policymakers, this conundrum is more than a puzzle —it’s the most pressing economic question in recent memory. But, unlike other paradoxes, this one has a solution.