Future Skill Shortages in the U.S. Economy?
The impending retirement of the baby boom cohort represents the first time in the history of the United States that such a large and well-educated group of workers will exit the labor force. This could imply skill shortages in the U.S. economy. We develop near-term labor force projections of the educational demands on the workforce and the supply of workers by education to assess the potential for skill imbalances to emerge. Based on our formal projections, we see little likelihood of skill shortages emerging by the end of this decade. More tentatively, though, skill shortages are more likely as all of the baby boomers retire in later years, and skill shortages are more likely in the near-term in states with large and growing immigrant populations.
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Copy CitationDavid Neumark, Hans P. Johnson, and Marisol Cuellar Mejia, "Future Skill Shortages in the U.S. Economy?," NBER Working Paper 17213 (2011), https://doi.org/10.3386/w17213.Download Citation
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Published Versions
Neumark, David & Johnson, Hans & Mejia, Marisol Cuellar, 2013. "Future skill shortages in the U.S. economy?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 151-167. citation courtesy of 
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