Yes, we’re aging.  Yes, baby boomers will be eligible for retirement soon.  Yes, there weren’t as many of the baby ‘bust’ generation born to replace those boomers.  But is that the extent of the labor problem?  Will we just be running out of people?  Or is there a bigger issue?

Technology has changed the way many things get done.  ATMs, shipping containers, Google, factory robots… we can even check out of the grocery store without the help of a human being.  Technology has raised productivity — maybe even enough to make up for the predicted demographic shortages.  But the news isn’t all good.  Technology has also dramatically upgraded the skill sets required in the contemporary workplace.

So even if we don’t run out of labor, will we run out of labor with the skills we need?  What do you think?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 28th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Talent Crunch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.