Talent Talk: Decoding the Labor Market

The labor market shortage has been a recurring theme in Talent Talk for many years. Shortages have been the norm, interrupted by brief opportunities to hire, but at other times exacerbated to the point where we saw two job openings for every person willing to work.

But the past is the past. As we potentially enter an era of manufacturing resurgence in the United States over the next five to 10 years, it is a good time to spend a few weeks diving deeper into how we got here and what is ahead. Labor market analytics company Lightcast recently published an extensive report on the subject, “The Rising Storm,” which is the source of many of the numbers we will use over the coming weeks.

The big boom

The American labor market was dominated by the baby boomers who began entering the workforce in the 1960s. By the late 1970s they were the largest segment of workers, a position they maintained for around 35 years. But their importance went far beyond just their numbers, which were driven by higher birthrates following World War II.

The way we were

For a range of reasons, many more women began joining the workforce. The nonagricultural US workforce nearly doubled from 60 million in 1960 to 115 million by 1990. This resulted in a labor market where employers could be very selective. Companies filled jobs by running an ad, sorting through hundreds of applicants to narrow the stack down to a manageable 10 to 20 candidates, and conducting several rounds of interviews to trim that number to three to four top-notch people, all of whom were eager to be the chosen one.

Related:Talent Talk: A Manufacturing Boom Is Coming, but Where Are the Workers?

Reality check on assumptions

Spoiler alert: That changed quite some time ago. Since we all know that, why am I talking about it? Because the baseline assumptions that were formed back then remain largely intact in today’s workplace, and it’s important to understand those assumptions before trying to logically project a very different reality in the years ahead. More to come on that next week.