A Global Shortage of Required Skills Threatens Prosperity in the lead up to and post 2030

A study by Rainer Strack presented in an amusing TED Talk indicates that by 2030, many of the world's largest economies will have more jobs than adult citizens to do those jobs.

What is worse there will be a global shortage of people with the skills to fill those jobs. In order to view this 12 minute talk click this link: http://go.ted.com/tdV

Using the example of Germany, Strack illustrates that despite the global population ballooning to about 8.5 billion by 2030 the working age populations in major producing countries will have shrunk. The situation in Germany is illustrated here, bearing in mind that the demographic profile utilised exists so the 2030 position is accurately predicted; ignoring immigration/emigration and any unfortunate calamity that may occur.

The same exercise applied to other major producing nations indicates the seriousness of the situation:

Of course the skill distribution amongst the working age population versus the needs of these economies in 2030 is more important than simple numbers.

In this talk Strack describes the Skills Mismatch that will surface despite the use of robots and other artificial intelligence in the manufacturing and service sectors. He points to the motor manufacturing industry as an area that has adopted technology to more or less replace people on the production line but has spawned associated jobs, such that more or less the same numbers of people are now involved in the process. However those new jobs require very different skill sets.

This leads to the conclusion that the global community needs to take urgent steps to ensure a suitably equipped workforce is available to maintain global GDP at adequate levels in the future. The reduction in workforce coupled with a probable skills mismatch threatens the prosperity of future generations if action is not initiated without delay.