How global talent shortage will affect long-term economic growth

The World Economic Forum just released a thorough study of the global talent shortage. The report examins the sources of this shortage, projects its impact on economic growth and makes a case of how to deal with it. Pretty interesting material which shows the challenges Western governments are facing and where they should invest in order to remain competitive.

Click here for the full report: Global Talent Risks Report 2011

Major facts:

• To sustain economic growth, by 2030 the United States will need to add more than 25 million workers and Europe will need to add more than 24 million employees.
• There are an estimated 214 million international migrants worldwide. Collectively, they would make up the world’s fifth-largest nation.
• Migration is not only a South-to-North phenomenon; in fact, 40% of the world’s migrants move from one developing country to another.
• Foreign nationals are authors of the majority of patent applications filed by many US companies: 65% at Merck and 64% at GE and 60% at Cisco.
• Foreign-born workers with university or equivalent qualifications make up just 2% of the European labour market, compared with 4.5% in the United States, 8% in Australia and nearly 10% in Canada.
• With 45 million new entrants in the global job market annually – most of them young – 300 million new jobs will be needed between now and 2015 to keeppace with the growth in the labour force.
• In North and West Africa, more than one-quarter of the population is under age 15 and unemployment rates for young people exceed 30%.
• Employability will continue to be a huge problem worldwide. Because of the uneven quality of education systems, only 25% of Indian and 20% of Russian professionals are currently considered employable by multinationals.
• Compared to today, in 2050, most G7 and all BRIC countries will have more than doubled age 65 and older dependency ratios, and all except India will have more aged societies than today’s most aged society (Japan).
• Even China faces long-term talent shortages. The number of those aged 60 and older is expanding rapidly, already forming 12.5% of the nation’spopulation. The country’s one-child policy and its drop in birth rates means that by 2050 the 10 workers now supporting each senior citizen will fall to 2.5.
• Eighty-nine per cent of women who voluntarily leave their jobs — for example to raise a child — want to go back to work but only 40% have been able to find full-time, mainstream jobs. 

 Major charts: