Dive Brief:
- Austin, the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C., have the greatest scarcity of skills, relative to other U.S. cities, according to LinkedIn's latest Emerging Jobs Report.
- These cities have a scarcity-driven skills gap, LinkedIn says, which means there's an unfilled demand for workers with certain skill sets like healthcare management, or education and teaching.
- The report also identified the top 20 emerging jobs in the U.S., and noted that the skills associated with quickly-growing roles include data mining, sales and business development and relationship management.
Dive Insight:
As employers continue to report a growing skills gap, business are turning to creative solutions for both attracting talent and upskilling current employees.
Cybersecurity, for example, remains a top need nationwide, but few IT professionals report proficiency in that area. A CompTIA study, however, shows that professionals are interested in cybersecurity training and are willing to train other staff in avoiding cyber breaches. The key here, it seems, may be enabling employees to undertake new training.
Some companies are designing their own training programs for various skill needs and partnering with colleges and universities to provide trainers and facilities. Microsoft, for example, teamed up with Eastern Washington University to design a degree program in data analytics, hoping to create a strong candidate pool for the future.
Others still are recruiting for the ability to learn, rather than current skills. That approach may become more common as companies find themselves hiring for jobs that don't even exist yet.
