Read on Twitter
Okay, Some Skills Gap Tweets:
Economic conditions are bad, and once again, certain segments of the nation turn their lonely eyes to the Skills Gap, the explanation for slow/non-recoveries that will never die.
Economic conditions are bad, and once again, certain segments of the nation turn their lonely eyes to the Skills Gap, the explanation for slow/non-recoveries that will never die.
What is the skills gap? People might define it differently, but I think this is a reasonable way to put it: mismatch between skills demanded by employers and skills supplied by workers that could exacerbate or prevent/slow recovery from current economic conditions
But what is the capital-S, capital-G Skills Gap? It's the fascination among policy makers, opinionators, economists, etc w/ the possibility of a skills gap, elevating this one channel/potential remedies over other explanations of/policy responses to prevailing economic conditions
The Skills Gap demands that we address skills gaps now, generally by fixing workers somehow, because doing so will have big benefits for everyone, especially employers, who are apparently powerless to acquire the skills they need on their own.
The thing about the Skills Gap is that lots of people see the components of skills gaps. Are there employers who have a hard time hiring for certain jobs? Yes. Are there people who could get better jobs with more skills? Yes. Would a more skilled workforce speed growth? Yes.
So what's the problem? If fixing skills gaps would make things better, shouldn't we do that? Well, yes, when we have opportunities to close skills gaps, we should take them. But the problem with the Skills Gap is that the opportunity cost of the fascination is huge.
To the extent that skills gaps are not primary drivers of recessions/slow recoveries (the Skills Gap always emerges during/after a recession), time spent on the Skills Gap is time not spent on measures that could address the primary drivers of recessions.
Exposure to recessions has large, persistent, negative consequences, and failure to prevent/expedite recovery from them leads to unnecessary suffering. The stakes are high, and good, timely policy responses are very important.
Was the skills gap responsible for the slow recovery from the Great Recession? I don't think so. The evidence overwhelming suggests that the problem was too little demand for labor, and the Skills Gap is a labor supply story.
Skills Gap folks spent the Great Recession & recovery talking about the wrong curve, and it helped let people off the hook for not doing more to stimulate demand. They were wrong, faced no consequences, and are back at it now. This is why some people hate the Skills Gap so much.
But crowding out better stimulus policy isn't the only opportunity cost of the Skills Gap. We actually do need policies/institutions that help workers who want to gain skills or switch to a new occupation do so, and credibility lost to the Skills Gap is can't advance this goal.
It is good to help people identify skills they want, create higher quality/lower cost ways for them to get those skills, and facilitate good matches between people who want skills and training programs. Go for it!
But the time for closing skills gaps is all the time, not just during windows after recessions when other kinds of policy have much greater impact.
"But wait, This Time is Different!" you might say. COVID has killed lots of businesses, changed the way many remaining firms do business, and altered people's preferences. This is the new normal, and many lost jobs aren't coming back. Surely the Skills Gap's time is now!
Some of that stuff could be true, at least to some extent. But I think it's much too soon to tell. We don't know what normal will be like post-COVID because we haven't come close to returning to it. Because COVID is nowhere near contained.
Part of the trouble we have containing COVID comes from people's (understandable) desperation to return to the status quo ante, which leads them to gather in large groups, dine in restaurants, not wear masks, etc. But this cuts against the idea that everything is different now.
We need to contain the virus, and policies that make progress on the science and make it easier for people to get by without taking risks/spreading the virus should be top priorities.
There is some risk that things have changed, at least for some workers, and skills gaps will cause problems in the future, but the Skills Gap doesn't help them.
I'm all for helping people close skills gaps. We can even work on it now, given the risk. But miss me with the Skills Gap. Contain the virus, the obvious and direct cause of our current problems, and provide financial support to individuals and businesses until we do.
