The Financial Times reports on industry’s concerns about finding enough capable, trained employees to keep operating. From “Ageing workforce creates skills shortages for US manufacturers“:

When Jim McNerney, Boeing’s president, chairman and chief executive, gave a speech on innovation, over lunch at a downtown Chicago hotel recently, he barely referred to the well-publicised woes his company has experienced in recent years in bringing new aircraft to market.

Instead, Mr McNerney focused on a concern for the future.

“Technology-based companies face an impending skills shortage,” he warned.

“This is a global circumstance . . . no single nation can produce enough creativity, talent or knowledge to meet today’s marketplace challenges alone.

“But the problem is growing acute in the United States, where many seasoned and skilled workers are close to retiring and insufficient numbers of capable workers are being prepared to replace them,” Mr McNerney went on.

FT cites a study commissioned by Oracle, Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, “People & Profitability – A Time For Change,” which substantiated how important a high-quality workforce is to profitable companies.

It’s interesting that Boeing’s McNerney notes the global nature of the skills shortage, a phenomenon we’ve seen just through regular searches of Internet news sources for the term “skills and shortage.” For example:

• Toronto Sun, “Skills shortage to leave Ontarians jobless by 2021: report“
• New Zealand Herald, “Aussie skills shortage prompts new Kiwi exodus fears“
• Inside SAP, “Victoria University working to end skills shortage“: “An agreement between Victoria University and the Singapore Government is working to address the skills shortage in the APAC region.”
• Birmingham Post, England, “Getting youngsters on board for a skills boost.”