Nearly three-quarters of U.S. companies (73 percent) expect an increase in their demand for "middle-skills" jobs that generally require more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree over the next few years. At the same time, more than half of those surveyed (56 percent) are struggling to find people with the qualifications to fill existing middle-skills vacancies, according to new research from Accenture.
The Accenture Middle Skills Survey was conducted in 2014 with more than 800 U.S. human resources (HR) executives across 18 industries and found that this lack of talent is having a direct impact on corporate performance. Almost seven in 10 (69 percent) of respondents indicated that the middle-skills shortage regularly affects their performance and more than one-third (34 percent) believe that the dearth of middle-skills workers has significantly undermined their productivity.
The Accenture research also identified the hardest-hit sectors and consistently hard-to-fill positions.
"The majority of U.S. employers across many business sectors are having great difficulty filling middle-skills positions, despite the fact that unemployment and under-employment remain a challenge for many Americans," says David Smith, senior managing director Accenture Strategy, Talent & Organization. "Our research provides practical advice about how to address the underlying issues that contribute to the skills gap and how to improve their processes to source, develop, deploy and retain middle-skills talent."
According to the HR survey, inadequate training and lack of experience were seen as the leading impediments to filling middle-skills positions: 54 percent of respondents said "trained talent is difficult to find" and 50 percent said "sufficient experience is not easy to find."
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.