A Washington Post article received lots of attention last week. It addresses the mismatch created when recruiters can’t find workers to fill jobs and recent college graduates can’t find entry-level jobs. Graduates frequently blame AI for their difficulties. But, it’s not AI — at least not yet. As the Post’s education writer Jon Marcus explains: “The United States is facing what’s projected to become the largest labor shortage in its history.”

Tech recruiter Matt Walsh told the Post that, in areas like semiconductor production, “There just aren’t enough people.” The jobs graduates want are not the jobs where the economy lacks workers. According to Stephanie Aliaga, Global Market Strategist for J.P. Morgan, this mismatch has been building. “Hiring,” she writes, “has narrowed meaningfully in recent years and shifted away from the jobs graduates typically aim for.”

More workers are needed in the care economy — especially for lower-wage jobs in home and personal care. Many open jobs require medical expertise. According to the Post’s Jon Marcus,  “Far fewer students are majoring in health care fields than are needed to meet demand.”

Economists predict shortages in jobs AI simply cannot replace. Jon Marcus says we’ll be short “tens or even hundreds of thousands of nurses, physicians, teachers, engineers, pharmacists, mental health counselors, construction workers and airplane mechanics.” He quotes Ron Hetrick, chief economist for Lightcast, a labor market data company, who says, “We have pumped so many young people into business and finance...It’s like a factory producing these workers like widgets, even though society is saying ‘We really don’t need them.” 

Give the Washington Post credit for articulating the primary reason for current and increasing workforce shortages: It’s our protracted decline in birth rates which now coincides “with a record wave of retirements.”

If we cannot meaningfully address these demographic shifts, we risk losing the ability to build, compete and even to keep society functioning. May God grant us wisdom to solve this.