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09.03.24
With Labor Department data showing slower job growth in the U.S. amid a cooling economy, and job openings coming down from peak pandemic-era levels, the employment market has come a bit more into balance. But that doesn’t mean the nation doesn’t still face a severe longer-term labor shortage, experts say.
“It’s very hard to find the right talent for really critical roles,” said Josh Wright, an executive vice president at Lightcast, an Idaho-based labor market research firm. He said much of the relative pause in hiring represents companies waiting to see how the election turns out.
“From what I’m seeing on the ground, there’s just a wait-and-see approach. So, there’s going to be a pent up demand,” he said.
Even now, there remain fewer available workers than there are job openings.
It’s no wonder that finding the best workforce remains a huge priority as companies decide where to do business, said site selection consultant John Boyd, Jr., of The Boyd Company.
“Companies are demanding new skill sets in things like artificial intelligence and cybersecurity and robotics,” he said. “So really, most projects today are really focused on workforce.”
Because of that, Workforce remains one of the most important categories in America’s Top States for Business, CNBC’s annual ranking of all 50 states. Under this year’s methodology, Workforce accounts for 15% of a state’s total score, second only to Infrastructure among ten categories of competitiveness.
We consider the educational attainment of each state’s workforce, and the concentration of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workers in each state. We also look at the career education pipeline, state workforce training programs, and workers with industry-recognized certificates. We look at each state’s right-to-work laws. We consider which states are most successful in attracting skilled workers (Lightcast supplied some of the worker attraction data). And we measure the productivity of each state’s labor force.
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