From 2026 to 2030, the number of 18-year-olds in the U.S. is going to fall by 7.3 percent, according to an analysis of census data by higher education consulting firm Ruffalo Noel Levitz.  

“This is as much of an immediate problem as it is a canary in the coal mine giving us warning that changes are coming to the demographics of our workforce,” says Jeff Strohl, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. 

Here’s what companies need to do to overcome this projected labor shortage: 

Switch to Skills-Based Hiring 

There will be far fewer college-educated entrants in the workforce. In 2022, only 62 percent of high school graduates went straight to college, down from 70 percent in 2016, according to the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics. 

Taylor says recruiters need to place less emphasis on college degrees and which schools applicants attended and focus on whether they have the skills to perform the job.  

“In the past, we assumed you could do the job because of the degree. But now we have to engage in a far deeper analysis of the job so that we can say, ‘What does a person actually need to be able to do the job?’ ” Taylor says. 

Kate Duchene, CEO of RGP, a Dallas-based consulting firm serving the accounting and financial industries, says many of her clients are adopting this approach.  

“There’s great talent out there that maybe doesn’t have a college degree that’s learned on the job,” Duchene says. 

Stop Overlooking Older Talent 

Experience comes with time, so employers will have to start looking at older applicants if they want someone with a specific skill set. That could start by upskilling existing employees and “rethinking the life cycle of talent,” Taylor says. He suggests employers “imagine the return on investment” by retraining loyal employees to stay with the company another five to seven years. 

In the accounting and financial sectors, upskilling employees to use the latest technology—like AI, for example—can free up their time to focus on “higher value work,” rather than mundane tasks like data entry, Duchene says.  

“It has to be a mix of technology and human support, and that’s the way we’ll get through some of these demographic trends or talent changes that are happening,” she adds. 

Create Higher Education Opportunities 

Although Taylor encourages employers to stop using college degrees as entry-level requirements for many jobs, he still believes higher education adds tremendous value to the workplace. But if employers want college educated talent, they may have to pay for it themselves, he says. 

To compete for a smaller talent pool, Taylor strongly recommends employers implement their own higher education program to upskill workers. Whether it’s giving them the opportunity to earn a degree while working or providing one- to two-year sabbaticals to focus on education, the perk will appeal to workers of all ages. 

“You’ll literally come out with a degree without debt, plus a degree with experience. That’s a really compelling value proposition,” Taylor says. 

He says one of the reasons so many universities are closing is that students aren’t willing to take on debt for an education if they can’t land a job with it. The solution is to partner with higher education, he says. 

“We have to go back to the higher-ed community and say, ‘These are skills we need your folks to have, and either you adjust your syllabi and your curriculum to give us that, or we’re not going to hire them,’ ’’ Taylor says. “And my guess is, if kids know that ‘I’m going to go to a college and I can’t get a degree,’ they’re not going to go to that college.” 

Bring Back Apprenticeships 

Along with classroom instruction, Taylor believes students and employers would be best served by reviving apprenticeships—which differ from internships because the student is also a full-time employee, learning on the job while studying.  

As a professor studying the workforce, Strohl agrees that employers and universities have everything to gain by partnering to create apprenticeships. Students would benefit from a combination of classroom instruction and hands-on learning, and employers could help shape their work style.  

“The more employers work with their local universities to develop these types of on-the-job training programs alongside education, the more likely they are to get graduates who fit their corporate culture, because that’s something you can’t teach in school,” Strohl says. 
This article courtesy of  Express Employment Professionals