While jobs are opening and remaining unfilled in industries as diverse as manufacturing and retail, one industry is facing a unique epidemic: healthcare. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the healthcare industry is expected to grow 18% between 2016 to 2026, adding 2.4 million new jobs.This growth is projected to climb particularly in patient-facing roles that do not require extensive college credentials.

Imagine a future in which employers focus more on skills competencies than on degrees when hiring new employees. While in some industries, that future may be far off, for middle-skills industries that are hit the hardest by the skills gap -- industries like allied health, manufacturing, the trades, and tech -- this new way of measuring candidate readiness might just be the solution they’re looking for.

Technology is changing the world of work faster than it ever has before. The degree a student earned five years ago, might not translate well to the workplace of today. This isn’t just true for technical jobs. Technology is changing the way we communicate with our customers and within our organization. It’s shifting the daily demands of work toward less repetitive and more collaborative and creative tasks. It’s even changing customer and employee expectations in a way that businesses couldn’t have predicted 10 years ago.

“There is an old African proverb: If you don’t embrace the young in your village, they will return later to burn it down for its warmth.”

At yesterday's 2019 Opportunity Summit, Andy Hall, COO of the San Diego Workforce Partnership, inspired the crowd with this adage at the opening session.

Keep it simple. Start with the end in sight. 

It’s no secret that finding skilled talent is getting harder. For decades, the labor pool had been more of a labor stream. It flowed in a predictable direction and employers knew where the best fishing spots were. Students graduated from high school, went to college, then were hooked by employers who gave them a job and, in many cases, a lifelong career. In this system, schools were responsible for educating and training. All businesses had to do was stand at their trusted fishing spot and catch whatever came by.

As anyone who has been in business over the last decade or so can tell you, the old fishing spots aren’t yielding like they used to. In 2018, the number of job openings in the U.S. rose to its highest level in almost two decades. That means more than 7.34 million job went unfilled in December.  It would be nice to be able to blame someone for this change in the market. It’s easy to blame the schools, the students, or the workers, but none of them are really at fault. At least, not entirely.