The growing skills gap could become as permanent as the labor shortage, a LinkedIn exec says. A.I. might be the solution

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The growing skills gap could become as permanent as the labor shortage, a LinkedIn exec says. A.I. might be the solution

The gap between what executives want and what employees are capable of (or care to give) is widening by the day. That may be the permanent state of things.

The current skills gap, as it were, is so big that nearly half (44%) of individual workers need to be upskilled to do their jobs effectively, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs Report. Workers are well aware. More than a third (37%) of Gen Zers feel their education didn’t equip them with the tech skills they need to advance in their careers, according to a Dell Technologies survey. The evidence is clear: Companies need more specialized expertise than most workers can provide.

“The long-term trend is pretty undeniable that the demand for skills outpaces the supply of skills,” Dan Shapero, chief operating officer of LinkedIn, tells Fortune. He explains that both workers and bosses are going to struggle to keep up with the need for new skills. “Employers are having difficulty finding the people they need, even in the current labor market,” he says. “[That’s] because the long-term trend towards technical and collaborative skills is just undeniable, and we can’t keep up with it.”

A gap between the skills most vitally needed and the skills most people can offer has posed a problem since America deindustrialized.

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