I came across a great report the other day entitled, “Are They Ready to Work?” It was prepared earlier this year by four organizations:

The Conference Board

Corporate Voices for Working Families

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Society for Human Resource Management

The report looks at the readiness of new entrants to the workforce. They determined this readiness by surveying over 400 employers from across the United States during 2006.

The major consensus and opening line of the Executive Summary was the following: “The future U.S. workforce is here- and it is woefully ill-prepared for the demands of today’s (and tomorrow’s) workplace.”

The employers were asked to articulate skills high school, two-year college, technical school, or four-year college graduates need to have in order to succeed in the workplace.

The employers sited the following four skills as most important:

1. Professionalism / Work Ethic

2. Oral and Written Communications

3. Teamwork / Collaboration and

4. Critical Thinking/ Problem solving.

They grouped skills into two groups: Basic Knowledge Skills and Applied Skills (the following are not ranked but merely listed).

BASIC KNOWLEDGE

English Language (spoken)

Reading Comprehension (in English)

Writing in English (grammar, spelling, etc…)

Mathematics

Science

Government / Economics

Humanities / Arts

Foreign Languages

History / Geography

APPLIED SKILLS

Critical Thinking / Problem Solving

Oral Communications

Written Communications

Teamwork / Collaboration

Diversity

Information Technology Application

Leadership

Creativity / Innovation

Lifelong Leering / Self Direction

Professionalism / Work Ethic

Ethics / Social Responsibility

Employers stated that Teamwork / Collaboration and Critical thinking are very important to success at work; more so than any of the basic knowledge skills.

Another finding from the report was that high school graduates do not have the skills necessary to be successful at work. None of the employers ranked the skills for high school graduates as excellent. All 10 of the skills that the employers regarded as very important were on the deficiency list for high school graduates.

Two-year school students didn’t fair much better. Only Information Technology Application made its way onto the excellent list for this group.

Four year college graduates faired a little better. According to the report their excellent list was longer than their Deficient list. Also, Creativity and Innovation was one of the skills that appeared on the four year graduate students list and is considered to be increasingly important in the eyes of the employers over the next five years.

Miscellaneous Information from the Report

- More than ¼ of employer respondents (27.7 percent) project that over the next five years their companies will reduce hiring of new entrants with only a high school diploma.

- Almost 60% project their companies will increase hiring of four year college graduates

- Nearly half of the employers project an increase in hiring of two-year and technical school graduates.

To download the entire report click here.

What jobs will be in great demand over the next five to 10 years?  For now industries like manufacturing often have a bad rapt for shedding so many jobs over the past 10 years or so.  When in fact there are many manufacturing companies across the country that is having a terrible time filling their open positions.  Since I live in the Pittsburgh area, historically a very strong manufacturing town, I consistently hear from manufactures about how they cannot find qualified people to work in their companies.

I came across an article on Yahoo.com about a manufacturing plant in Emmaus Pennsylvania that is looking for a specialized group of welders.  This company is actually turning down business because of their struggle in finding qualified talent.  One of the major complaints job seekers expound is the lack of open positions when in fact the real problem is lack of positions they are qualified for.  There a ton of open positions within companies all over the world, the hard part is finding qualified people to work in these positions.

If you are looking for a job are you willing to re-tool or get some additional training in an industry like manufacturing?  A lot of manufacturing companies have apprenticeship or training programs that will give you the opportunity to get paid while you train.  Many of these jobs in manufacturing require extensive technical training that many college graduates did not receive if they majored in anything other than engineering or IT.

The jobs of the future will most likely be in advanced manufacturing, robotics, healthcare, nanotechnology, MEMS, and of course information technology.  All very technically focused.  However, our great country is facing a challenge when it comes to having enough qualified candidates to work in these fields in 2006; how do you think it is going to be in 2020?