Friday, January 20, 2012

Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018

Excellent report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce shows how higher education is increasingly a gatekeeper for access to the middle and upper classes in America.



"America is slowly coming out of the Recession of 2007—only to find itself on a collision course with the future: not enough Americans are completing college.

"...by 2018, we will need 22 million new college degrees—but will fall short of that number by at least 3 million postsecondary degrees, Associate’s or better. In addition, we will need at least 4.7 million new workers with postsecondary certificates. At a time when every job is precious, this shortfall will mean lost economic opportunity for millions of American workers.

"This shortage is the latest indication of how crucial postsecondary education and training has become to the American economy. The shortfall—which amounts to a deficit of 300,000 college graduates every year between 2008 and 2018—results from burgeoning demand by employers for workers with high levels of education and training. Our calculations show that America’s colleges and universities would need to increase the number of degrees they confer by 10 percent annually, a tall order..."

"Information Services 
  • for example, newspaper publishers, libraries and archives, Internet service providers, the motion picture and videos industry, plus all other broadcast industries
"This is the signature services industry in the new knowledge economy. Because of its extraordinary productivity, Information  Services is distinguished by its output growth and the intensity of its demand for postsecondary education more than for its employment share. Information Services produced $769 billion
in output in 1998, grew to $1.1 trillion in 2008, and is projected to grow to $1.9 trillion in 2018. Information Services moved from our ninth-largest industry in overall output in 1989, to seventh in 2008, and is projected to move into sixth by 2018..."

(This is in spite of the cluster including declining components like newspaper publishing that are not ICT.  Other fast growing ICT sector components are not included in the Information cluster.  ICT is growing at a much faster pace.  That is a reason MPICT has been advocating adoption of ICT as an industry and employment sector for the U.S.  It provides better information and visibility for the strategic importance of ICT.  JBJ)

"The share of postsecondary workers in Information Services has increased dramatically over time. From 1983 to 2008, the share of workers with at least some postsecondary education or training rose from 33 percent to 78 percent, and we project it will rise to 91 percent by 2018. Information Services had the second-highest share of postsecondary workers in 2008 at 79 percent. We project that trend will continue through 2018 as that share goes even higher, to 91 percent.

"Workers with postsecondary education or training are overrepresented in the Information Services workforce. The industry employs just 2 percent of the nation’s workers but 3 percent of its postsecondary workers. Information Services will provide 985,000 job openings between 2008 and 2018, and 902,000 of those will require at least some college..."

Excellent report 

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