Gordon Report

 GORDON REPORT

Employment & the Economy in Uncertain Times

 

Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, announced the launching of the Security and Resiliency Initiative a 10-year, $1.5 trillion effort to boost the U.S. economy. This effort is designed to increase economic growth, innovation, and jobs that facilitate American competitiveness.

 

Dimon listed many obstacles that stand in the way. Among them he singled out the U.S. education system for being misaligned with the job skills needed in today’s labor market. He called for the “design of policies that can accelerate these efforts, including training, research and development.” He further stated, “Apprenticeship and career education programs must be expanded to close the manufacturing skills gap,” Dimon’s final exhortation, “We hope that America will come together to address these challenges, as we have in the past. We need to act now.”

 

The good news is that initiatives in a number of vital economic sectors are already underway in many U.S. communities. Health systems are collaborating with local high schools and community colleges to create skilled-worker pipelines. Bloomberg Philanthropies has provided $250 million to help fund 10 programs for healthcare careers in Tennessee, Texas, and North Carolina to alleviate vacancies in nursing, therapy, and technician positions.

 

Ballard Health is working to create a local labor pool with five northeast Tennessee school districts. Their program serves as a ladder to encourage more students to pursue more advanced medical training. Ballard helps to subsidize their education.

 

High School Inc., a non-profit foundation in Santa Ana, California, now operates six career academies with the support of local businesses, community organizations, the school district, and foundation grants. Since it began in 2007, High School Inc. has significantly improved the achievement levels of thousands of students as evidenced by a 98 percent high-school graduation rate and 89 percent of its graduates pursuing post-secondary education. High School Inc is now expanding to other Santa Ana high schools because of its success in boosting student motivation and performance. Edwin, a senior year student, told Jack Oakes, the High School Inc. Board Secretary,” My experience at High School Inc. put me on a journey that reshaped my vision of the future.”

 

MPOVING FORWARD

In the United Kingdom a quarter of job vacancies are due to skills shortages. Not enough people have the right educational and job skills to match the economy’s needs. The British Prime Minister has set a new target for its education system:  two-thirds of youth participating in post-secondary learning including academic, technical, and apprenticeship programs by age 25, The government is setting up a new skills agency, expanding apprenticeships, and fostering the development shorter technical and vocational courses in colleges and universities.

 

Similar initiatives need to be launched at the state level here in the United States due to the great economic diversity of individual states. In the State of Wisconsin, a significant expansion of apprenticeship education started in the first decade of this century. Wisconsin has also focused on strengthening cooperation among businesses and its network of technical and community colleges and the regional campuses of its university system.

 

Regional alliances have also been formed to amplify the state initiatives. The New North Inc. is non-profit corporation focused on fostering collaboration among its private and public sectors to promote the economic development of 18 counties in northeast Wisconsin. This region also has four industry alliances in manufacturing, health care, construction, and information technology that are seeking to build talent pipelines through collaborative efforts with educational institutions and other community organizations.

 

Systemic initiatives to diversify and align education and training with the needs of today’s labor market are urgently needed. Statewide efforts such as those in Wisconsin point the way forward.

 

Edward E. Gordon is the founder and president of Imperial Consulting Corporation in Chicago. His firm’s clients have included companies of all sizes from small businesses to Fortune 500 corporations, U.S. government agencies, state governments, and professional/trade associations. He taught in higher education for 20 years and is the author of numerous books and articles. More information on his background can be found at  www.historypresentations.com . As a professional speaker, he is available to provide customized presentations on contemporary workforce issues.

Increasing Labor Market Challenges

 GORDON REPORT

Increasing Labor Market Challenges

 

Employment volatility and chaos continues across all business sectors. This trend will continue into the foreseeable future due to uncertainty about how tariffs and other shifts in government policies will influence the economy.

 

Employers have pulled back some hiring and laid off some workers. However, the lack of sufficient educated/skilled labor persists. A National Federation of Independent Business survey (7/23/25) found that 33 percent of businesses reported job openings they could not fill. Twenty-nine percent had openings for skilled labor.

 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) JOLTS June release reported that about 500K manufacturing jobs, 1.1M professional and business service jobs and over 1.6M health-care positions were vacant.

 

The most recent BLS employment report (8/1/25) signaled employment troubles due to downward revisions in the May and June employment numbers. The President responded by firing the BLS Commissioner. He claimed, without any proof, that the numbers are being politically manipulated. The BLS has experienced difficulties in gathering data due in some part to deportations and tariff shifts, but this action suggests that shooting the messenger will solve them.

 

This move and the potential politicalization of future BLS reports will further erode trust in U.S. government statistics. Without impartial, dependable data on wages, inflation, and other aspects of the U.S. economy, policymakers, investors, and businesses both domestic and foreign will find decision-making more difficult. How can businesses hire or invest if because of uncertain tariffs and economic data, they don’t know what the costs of goods or services will be, or from which sources they will be able to buy at competitive prices?

 

On another important job-related front, a recent Korn Ferry survey (7/29/25) on AI reported that about 80 percent of U.S. companies said that this technology is a top priority in their current business strategy.

 

Rather than just focusing on using AI for labor cutbacks, firms also need to concentrate on upskilling their workers to create strong human-AI partnerships that will better spur innovation and growth. Every business must carefully consider what skills, roles and functions AI can replace and which ones it should not.

 

AI can synthesize large amounts of data, but the quality and relevance of the data is crucial. People, therefore, need to grow their abilities to analyze and evaluate both information sources and AI output. Contrary to what AI promoters claim, human possession of these skills will never become irrelevant and will play a vital role in the growth and prosperity of businesses and organizations and the overall health of the U.S. economy.

 

Edward E. Gordon is the founder and president of Imperial Consulting Corporation in Chicago. His firm’s clients have included companies of all sizes from small businesses to Fortune 500 corporations, U.S. government agencies, state governments, and professional/trade associations. He taught in higher education for 20 years and is the author of numerous books and articles. More information on his background can be found at  www.historypresentations.com . As a professional speaker, he is available to provide customized presentations on contemporary workforce issues.

Tallahassee, FL We are seeing a decline in employment in the region. Our unemployment rate is increasing, and we are handling some local closures and layoffs. Traffic to the career centers is on the rise. This is at a time when we are flat-funded and constrained on how to spend our funding by the state and federal governments.  Should the economy shift to a recession in the coming months, the workforce system across the country will be overwhelmed and underfunded to meet the increasing demand.

Jim McShane

Gordon February Report on Workforce Issues 2024

 FEBRUARY GORDON REPORT

The Current U.S. Labor-Market Conundrum

 

The February 2024 BLS jobs report showed a surge of 353,000 jobs added in January, more than double than what was predicted in economic surveys. This follows a gain of 330,00 jobs in December. Another surprise in this February report is that average hourly wages grew rather than holding steady. Over the past year they have grown 4.5 per cent. What factors may be behind these unexpected numbers?

 

An average of 10,000 workers from the large baby-boomer population have been retiring each day. This year the average will grow as the baby-boomer retirements peak. This flood of retirees will continue until 2030. Therefore, this year and until the end of this decade, many job openings will arise from the need to replace retirees.

 

In at least some sectors of the economy, it appears that employers are raising wages to find workers with the skills they need. Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg of the NFIB (an association of small business owners) reported on their January survey, “Owners continue to raise compensation to retain and attract workers with the skills and willingness to do the job, but hiring remains a struggle in a tight labor market.” So far, this strategy has not been very successful. In that same survey, 39 percent of the respondents reported having unfilled job openings. Members of the Association of General Contractors also have high levels of unfilled jobs despite providing a wage premium of almost 19 percent over that of the average for private-sector production employees.

 

In some cases, higher wages may attract people who have not been participating in the labor force to seek a job if the pay level would offset the costs of childcare, a long commute, or obtaining additional training. A recent Korn Ferry survey of job seekers, however, found that many applicants do not have the skills required for open jobs. In some cases this is due to the development of new types of jobs with recently updated skill sets.

 

The above data points to a current labor market with a significant skills-jobs mismatch. But the Training Industry Annual Survey of 2023 reported that business investment in employee training remained flat. Going forward, predictions are that companies will cut their training budgets.  The irony is that one way or the other business will have to pay more to find skilled workers either through continuing to raise wages or by investing in more in-house or collaborative training programs.

 

Edward E. Gordon is the founder and president of Imperial Consulting Corporation in Chicago. His firm’s clients have included companies of all sizes from small businesses to Fortune 500 corporations, U.S. government agencies, state governments, and professional/trade associations. He taught in higher education for 20 years and is the author of numerous books and articles. More information on his background can be found at  www.imperialcorp.com. As a professional speaker, he is available to provide customized presentations on contemporary workforce issues.

 

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