2009 Global Recession: 3 million jobs wanted?

This BusinessWeek edition shows paradoxical news: with 13 million people unemployed during the current recession, there are 3 million job offerings uncovered.

The problem seems to arise from the combination of two factors: (1) a mismatch between supply and demand and (2) reduced mobility due to the real estate market crisis.

(1) As manufacturing and construction reduce their workforce -as well as finance-, health, education, social work, business services, government, reatil, leisure and hospitality are in high demand with fewer prepared people to respond. Too many MBAs and too few nurses and teachers? That might be good news for ITSON...

The problem behind the mismatch is the use of a "benchmarking", "follow the trend" model that always arrives late with inadequate supply. Those MBAs that were in high demand in 2000, are precisely oversupplied in a post-crash market with dying banks.

ITSON's new strategy is proving smarter: instead of "responding" to the "trends", our strategic projects create them, pointing at a longer term timeframe and to Mega-level requirements. That is why our PII projects are in... education, health, hospitality, business services and government.

(2) Real estate crisis has an unintended consequence: people that cannot sell their current homes -those oversold on the promise of an "ownership society"- cannot move to where the demand is either. Renting can be a wiser model.

US growth has always been based on a highly mobile, trainable workforce. Helping with real estate might help in increasing supply's elasticity.

How can PII projects respond to this new reality?

__________________________________

References

• Coy, P. (2009) Help Wanted: Why That Sign's Bad
  The nation has 3 million jobs going begging. And without retraining, U.S. workers may not be able to fill them . BusinessWeek
• Ewing, J. (2009) Learning Labor Market Lessons from Germany
  By reforming benefits and other programs, unemployment in Germany has increased only slightly. The U.S. could learn a thing or two.BusinesWeek
  

___________________________________