The Future of the U.S. Workforce

Last week, The Globalist featured a two-part series from Jacob Kirkegaard’s new book, “The Accelerating Decline in America’s High-Skilled Workforce: Implications for Immigration Policy.” In Part I, Kirkegaard underscores several trends that are reshaping the U.S. workforce and, in turn, impacting the competitiveness of the American worker in the global economy: stagnation in skill levels of younger cohorts as compared to baby boomers; declining relative skill advantage compared to the rest of the world; and lack of reform in immigration policy that promotes retention of high-skilled immigrants.

In Part II, Kirkegaard takes a closer look at white-collar outsourcing, particularly in the U.S. software sector. Based on low and stable unemployment rates, a shrinking wage gap between Indian and American software workers, and a wealth of software sector job openings, he argues that U.S. software professionals have little to worry about regarding employment security. Moreover, over the last 10 years, these workers have seen median wage increases topped only by workers in management, health care, and business and finance.

Nonetheless, the story is quite different for many Americans who are not in these high-skill professions. In a related article on The Globalist, David Abney, Chief Operating Officer of UPS, points to some particularly effective retraining models, used in Sweden and in the state of Georgia, that can better prepare the average American worker for ever-increasing global competition.