Rethinking how businesses source and develop their workforce amid the looming talent shortage

As the Trump administration continues its global economic shakeup, U.S. employers are waking up every day to fundamental threats to their strategic investments and partnerships. But the boldface headlines about tariffs, recessionary threats, and drastic cuts to federal funding overshadow a long-simmering and growing menace: talent shortages. 

The timing couldn’t be worse, and the economic consequences couldn’t be more severe. At stake is the nation’s global leadership in what the World Economic Forum has dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This includes the ability to deploy such innovations as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and robotics. This revolution is fueled by human talent, not coal or water power as in earlier eras. “Talent is 21st century wealth,” former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said in 1999.  

Our escalating talent gaps pose fundamental questions for the nation. How should employers source talent in the midst of an aging population, restricted immigration, and rapidly shifting demand for skills? Are we as a nation overlooking talent that is currently disconnected from quality employment, education, and training opportunities?  

Leila Janah, the late founder of Sama, a tech firm that has helped thousands of people lift themselves out of poverty, once said: “Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not.” If talent is indeed ubiquitous, what are some strategies for employers seeking to identify and develop talent to fuel our economic future? 

The talent deficit wolf is already at the door. There were 7.6 million job openings in the U.S. as of February 2025, with particular challenges in states such as Ohio (295,000 openings in January 2025), where Intel and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are investing billions of dollars to build advanced manufacturing facilities. Assuming funding proceeds as planned, Intel’s two semiconductor plants are expected to create 3,000 direct jobs in Ohio by 2031, while AWS data center expansions are expected to produce 230 direct new jobs and 1,000 support positions by December 2029. 

Here’s the problem: As of September 2023, Ohio had only 62 available workers for every 100 open jobs. “Workforce is the No. 1 problem anywhere we go in Ohio,” Ohio Manufacturers’ Association President Ryan Augsburger told The Wall Street Journal in December 2023. “It’s going to get a lot worse with large companies like Intel.”  

These challenges will likely worsen, according to the Lightcast report “The Rising Storm: Building a Future-Ready Workforce to Withstand the Looming Labor Shortage.” The talent deficit could be roughly 6 million workers by 2032 due to a lower labor force participation rate. Related challenges include pending retirements in the 76-million-member baby boomer cohort, lower birth rates, and labor market losses due to incarceration and addiction. That analysis does not even account for a lower number of immigrants to fill key roles, assuming the Trump administration fulfills its plans to crack down on immigration and increase deportations of undocumented immigrants. In fact, according to the Lightcast report, “Immigration will be key to keeping the economy afloat.” 

Even if a recession hits and unemployment surges, a mismatch between the skills that displaced workers have and the skills that employers need to fill openings will lead to the same result: unfilled jobs.

Innovating the talent search  

Given the structural and political dynamics impacting the labor market, employers can either pursue business as usual—including poaching from other companies and regions—with higher costs and diminishing returns, or seek new channels of homegrown talent.  

The search for new channels would include those who are either sitting on the economic sidelines (people who are not participating in the labor market) or are not currently able to contribute to their full potential (the under-employed). They are dislocated coal miners and steel workers, individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities, youth of color without access to information about in-demand jobs and training opportunities, and women pigeonholed into low-wage service jobs with no hope of career advancement.  

Given our nation’s looming talent shortages and increasing skill demands, what could be more important—indeed, more patriotic—than lifting undervalued talent onto “the field”? The cancer researchers, climate scientists, and master electricians we’ve been waiting for could be sitting in under-resourced high school classrooms, disconnected from broadband. Or they could be at job centers perusing unappealing menus of low-wage jobs without benefits or viable paths to career mobility.  

Typically, the search for future talent leads to schools in wealthy suburbs where students have access to advanced educational tools, vibrant professional networks, and well-placed mentors. Examples from a 2024 U.S. News and World Report ranking of 17,655 high schools include Palo Alto High School in California (ranked 183, with 84% of students achieving proficiency in mathematics) and Byram Hills High School in Armonk, N.Y. (ranked 168 with 99% of students proficient in math). But if talent is everywhere, our search must expand to schools in lower-income communities, such as Harlan County High School in Baxter, Ky. (where 20% of students are proficient in math) and Monument Valley High School in the Navaho Nation town of Kayenta, Ariz. (where 10% are proficient in math). 

Persistent educational disparities call into question the value of these rankings and other attempts to quantify the unquantifiable: intelligence, potential, curiosity, drive, the ability to work in teams, and capacity for innovation.

Scaling what works  

Leila Janah’s observation about talent is not an abstraction for me. My work has included developing strategies for getting undervalued talent on the field, thus strengthening families, communities, and regional economies. I have served as a manager at NOVAworks, a workforce development board in Silicon Valley, and am currently a board member at Hack the Hood, an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit providing tech training and career navigation support for Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Latino or Hispanic youth.  

At NOVAworks, we produced the Bridge Report to better understand the role of career navigation in supporting successful tech careers in Silicon Valley. The report articulated Five Truths of Career Success: self-awareness, networking, relationship management, organizational reading, and mentorship. All of these underscore the value of access to opportunity. 

Through my experiences, I know that the Five Truths are as relevant to youth from low-income communities as they are to software engineers with Ivy League educations. I’ve met a software engineer without a college degree; individuals on the autism spectrum who develop unique solutions for corporate clients of global consultancy firm EY; and formerly incarcerated individuals who are thriving in the San Francisco Bay Area tech ecosystem.

The path forward  

We are at a point in our nation’s economic history where crisis must be the mother of invention. Employers unable to connect with overlooked talent will increasingly struggle to fill openings and stay competitive, especially given the looming demographic challenges outlined in the Lightcast report.  

Here are some strategies for employers to forge a path forward: 

1. Redefine talent to include the career changers, working learners, the geographically isolated, youth without positive role models and aspirations, the formerly incarcerated, graduates from “low-ranked” high schools and colleges, and those on non-linear learning and career pathways.  
2. Rethink hiring and promotion criteria to minimize degree requirements for roles that don’t require a degree, and select talent based on demonstrated competency and mastery rather than credentials and pedigree.  
3. Locate future employees through leveraging internal resources—including existing employees and corporate social responsibility staff—to identify those community-based organizations closest to the untapped talent.  
4. Partner with local and regional workforce and educational institutions to host career fairs, hire interns, sponsor apprentices, recruit and train new hires, and ensure that curriculum and programming for developing human capital emphasize all elements of the career success equation, including access to social capital, hands-on learning, exposure to a broad menu of career options, as well as degrees and certificates.  
5. Provide educators and workforce leaders with the most important resource: access to timely labor market intelligence, which is the essential element of relevant curriculum and economic development programming.  

The need is great. The stakes couldn’t be higher. The talent is everywhere. Are we ready to reap the rewards?