Report: The U.S. is facing its largest labor shortage in history

Lightcast's The Rising Storm predicts a six-million worker deficit by 2032

September 17, 2024

There’s a massive labor shortage on the horizon and employers must act now in order to have enough skilled workers to fill in-demand jobs, according to a new report from Lightcast. The report forecasts a labor gap of six million workers over the next eight years, with the health care, skilled trades, hospitality, and other service industries hit the hardest.

The Rising Storm: Building a Future-Ready Workforce to Withstand the Looming Labor Shortage says the pending shortage is being fueled by the deluge of Baby Boomer retirements, plummeting childbirth rates, and historically low labor force participation, particularly among men. The Rising Storm is a follow-up to Lightcast’s Demographic Drought series that first predicted the coming labor shortage and opportunities to increase labor participation rate.

To overcome hiring deficits, Lightcast suggests employers, educators, and local workforce development organizations prioritize skill adjacency, upskilling, and development to build a robust, future-ready workforce.

“Employers need to open the door wide in order to reach as many applicants as possible. This means job descriptions need to be clear and open-minded, ideally also oriented around future training and reskilling,” according to the report.

It also suggests other ways to expand the talent supply, including through seeking capable employees abroad or exploring the potential of AI in key roles. Meanwhile, says Lightcast, educators and employers must prioritize skills development and adaptability over college degrees.

The report goes in depth on how public and private organizations can work to address this labor shortage. You can read the full report here: The Rising Storm: Building a Future-Ready Workforce

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.