White Paper
How Business Can Solve the Forever Labor Shortage
Abstract
Economists now confirm what hiring managers have long suspected: The US is facing a Forever Labor Shortage of skilled workers. A rising wave of Baby Boomer retirements, combined with a tech revolution that is dramatically changing the workforce talent needs of employers, means the current hiring crunch is expected to continue for years. The Congressional Budget Office projects the potential labor force to expand by a mere 3.6% between 2022 and 2031 — one-eighth of the pace in the 1970s. Over the following decade, that growth is projected to slow even more, to 2.9%. That means employers face decades of an essentially stagnant labor pool. This white paper discusses how employer solutions such as creating skills-based organizations, internal talent marketplaces, an upskilling culture, and skills-focused job promotion, center on one reality: It’s almost always better and cheaper to build talent internally than to buy it externally through recruitment and hiring.
Author
Leo Goncalves is an experienced strategist with a remarkable ability to drive growth and organizational transformation through aligned strategies and technology-enabled initiatives. With over 25 years of experience, he has built and enhanced organizational capabilities that delivered sustainable operational improvements. As the Vice President of the Workforce Solutions Group at the University of Phoenix, a position he has held since June 2019, Leo leads a national team focused on corporate, government, community college, and tribal segments. He is responsible for business development, customer success, sales operations, and product development.
Leo holds a Master of Business Administration with a major in Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He earned a Master of Arts in International Studies with a focus on Latin America from The Joseph H. Lauder Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.