Even in the midst of a recession, there are shortages in such jobs as engineering, healthcare, and information technology. The Employment Policy Foundation estimates that 80 percent of the impending labor shortage will involve skills, not numbers of workers. Obviously, the pipeline issue is serious.
The corporate world cannot fix the pipeline problem alone. It is complex and will take the collaborative efforts of educators, government, not for profits and most importantly parents. Corporations employ parents. Parents have the most direct influence on their children’s lives and today many parents spend more time at work than they do at home. Combined weekly work hours for dual-earning couples with children rose 10 hours per week, from 81 hours in 1977 to 91 hours in 2002, according to a study by the New York-based Families and Work Institute.
Bill Gates was on The Oprah Winfrey Show a couple of years ago and said that if we do not do something about public education, The US will soon lose its status as a world power.
