More than half last month’s small job growth of only 80,000 new jobs, was generated by professional and business services, which added 47,000 jobs – with temporary workers accounting for 25,000 of this sector’s increase.
“We remain in a unique long period of unemployment and underemployment, during which skills requirements are moving fast,” said Jeffrey A. Joerres, ManpowerGroup chairman and CEO. “We still have demand, but employers face heaping amounts of uncertainty that stems from what’s happening with Europe, China, Obamacare, the upcoming U.S. general election, etc.”
Manpower urges U.S. businesses, governments and educators to focus on master blueprints for boosting job creation.
Job creation blueprints
Job creation blueprints that ManpowerGroup endorses include the HR Policy Association’s U.S. Blueprint for Jobs in the 21st Century and the Business 20 (B20) Task Force on Employment master plan for boosting global employment.
These plans identify public-private sector initiatives for upskilling and placing talent into growing industry sectors. A co-chair on the new B20 task force, Joerres delivered its priority actions to the G20 last month.
“Stakeholders in the U.S. economy cannot wait for jobs to be created,” Joerres added.
“All employers, educators and levels of government, and individuals play a critical role in creating jobs. The right blueprint and scalable model initiatives exist. What’s needed is for businesses, educators and governments to intricately collaborate in mapping how to sustain the U.S. talent pipeline.”
Of course, little is likely to get done on the the federal level, with the U.S. government mired in senseless partisan bickering such as yet another useless and only symbolic vote on repealing the Affordable Healthcare act (the 31st time the GOP led House has taken such a vote, which is doomed to die in the Senate).
But perhaps states and local governments and educators can play a greater role.
According to ManpowerGroup’s 2012 Talent Shortage Survey results, 49% of U.S. employers struggle to fill mission-critical positions. Skilled trades, engineering and IT positions continue to place on this list year after year.
Training and education programs could go a long way toward alleviating the lack of workers with appropriate skills.
As editor of several regional business publications, we covered many such programs and they were often successful not only in getting people back to work in states such as North Carolina, but also in attracting new businesses and economic development.
Also, 56% of employers, worldwide, indicate unfilled positions are expected to have little or no impact on key constituents, such as customers and investors. This proportion has grown considerably worldwide from 36 percent in 2011 to 56 percent in 2012
