Apprenticeships have almost reached the status of a buzzword in the discussion over how to close the skills gap. State Senators are introducing bills to make apprenticeships more accessible to high school students. Meanwhile, officials in Maryland are expanding a high school apprenticeship program that started in two counties out to the rest of the state.

In almost every industry, for almost every business, finding qualified middle-skills candidates to fill open jobs is difficult. The low unemployment rate isn’t helping. Jobs are harder to fill and keeping existing employees is more important than ever. Meanwhile, rapid changes in technology and the development of new ways of doing business, mean that even existing employees may not have the right skill sets.

Employers challenged by the skills gap are turning to staffing firms to find qualified employes. Yet staffing companies are not immune to the skills gap. Just like employers, staffing companies are struggling to recruit and retain skilled talent.  To continue serving their clients, staffing companies need to go beyond placement and start upskilling and training employees for high-demand roles. This strategy will allow staffing companies to do more than overcome the skills gap, it will allow them to thrive in a whole new way.

You’ve heard of the skills gap. Well there’s another challenge facing employers who have middle-skills jobs to fill: the credentials gap.

For years, businesses have missed out on quality candidates. With a single sentence, they discouraged potentially great employees from even applying. Different companies phrase it in different ways: “Bachelor’s degree required. Associate degree preferred. This position assumes a 4 year degree.” Whichever way they said it, the message was the same, applicants without college degrees shouldn’t even bother.

Like many industries in today’s economy, the trucking industry is not immune to the effects of the growing labor shortage for skilled workers. According to the Washington Post¹, young Americans are increasingly becoming disinterested in joining the trucking labor force, as fear of the imminence of self-driving trucks continues to permeate the industry. While such a reality may still be far into the future, the reality that exists today is this: There simply aren’t enough truck drivers to go around.

The time has come to serve the middle skilled workforce in the United States. In an interview with Todd Hand of Boston Search Group, Penn Foster CEO Frank Britt explains the recent trends and future outlook for the workforce development industry. Highlighting the importance of upskilling and investing in the middle skilled, or “gray collar,” cohort of workers, Britt’s interview focuses on how organizations are finally becoming aware of this need for workforce development.

As technology continues to evolve at an incredibly fast rate, the role of staffing firms has changed with it. The average worker is finding it more and more difficult to stay current with the necessary skills to succeed in a labor market that’s requiring more of them each and every day, and the result is a growing skills gap. As that gap widens, the role of staffing firms has become more important than ever. No longer are staffing firms able to simply play matchmaker between an employer and a prospective hire; in order to remain competitive, they must be able to cultivate highly qualified candidates and successfully find homes for them with the right organizations at the right time.

Businesses today are increasingly being faced with a similar challenge: The need for highly talented employees is moving at a much faster pace than the skills development of those employees. Rapid advancements in technology have completely changed the landscape of the modern labor market, and organizations have more of a responsibility than ever to ensure that they’re working to help close this skills gap and giving their workers the ability to survive in a highly competitive environment. In Penn Foster’s eBook, “Manufacturing Talent: The New Role for Apprenticeships in Today’s Labor Market,” author Collin Gutman details the work that is being done by several major organizations to pioneer the rebirth of the modern apprenticeship, dispels some common myths about apprenticeships, and offers a blueprint for success for businesses looking to launch their own programs.  

One of the great things about our country is that we are not just defined by what’s happened in the past, we’re also shaped by the possibilities of the future.  So, on a day that is the ultimate definition of the “present,” the monthly release of the Labor Department’s jobs report, I think we should celebrate – but only for a quick moment – the positive numbers and look ahead to what we can all do to make the jobs environment even better in that future we can still invent.