By Anna Helhoski | NerdWallet
More Americans than ever are now educated beyond a high school diploma.
And yet, half of all local labor markets are not on track to meet their own labor demands by 2031, according to a recent report titled “The Great Misalignment” from Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW).
The analysis measured 565 local labor markets in the U.S., all of which have at least one provider of certificates or associate degrees — also known as middle-skills credentials. Researchers found that, in half of all local economies, the number of middle-skills credentials conferred will fall short of meeting expected labor demand through 2031. It projects that at least 50% of all types of middle-skills credentials issued in these markets would need to change to meet those demands.
To provide more insight into the analysis, NerdWallet spoke with one of the authors of the report, Zack Mabel, research professor of education and economics at Georgetown University’s CEW and co-author of the report “The Great Misalignment.”
The following interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
NerdWallet: What happens when middle-skills credentials and the local labor market don’t align?
Zack Mabel: Employers struggle to recruit skilled workers for the jobs that they need. Individual graduates are at risk of being trained in fields that they actually can’t find work in so they may find themselves underemployed or over-employed. Local economic growth is likely to be stymied as a result of these inefficiencies. Not to mention the fact that alignment, by itself, doesn’t guarantee the expanding of economic opportunity.
In many cases, much of that credential underproduction is also leading to underproduction in programs that provide pathways to quite high-paying jobs for middle-skills workers.
NerdWallet: Did you see trends in any specific middle-skills jobs that aren’t being met across job markets?
Zack Mabel: We know, for example, that middle-skills credentials that are aligned with blue collar jobs tend to be underproduced. So nationally, we expect that about 23% of job openings available to middle-skills workers over the next several years will be blue collar.
Middle-skills providers collectively are producing only 12% of their credentials in those fields. We know that there are some dramatic shortages in many of the programs that are training people for these workers.
NerdWallet: On the flip side, are there certificates and degrees from middle-skills jobs that are overly conferred?
Zack Mabel: We see that many students are sort of drawn to enter business programs — even for folks who are in certificate and associate degree programs. As a result, among middle-skills providers, 13% of their credentials are being awarded in management and professional programs. Whereas, less than 10% of the jobs available to middle-skills workers over the next several years are in those occupations. So there’s a sort of overall credential overproduction there as well.
One of the major contributors that we see to the overall levels of misalignment is actually programs that are awarded in general …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
