According to a recent study from Applied Economic Strategies, employers continue to struggle to fill job openings, despite a slightly diminished unemployment rate.
Data from the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Congressional Budget Office indicated that there were around 2 million unemployed people with mismatched skills in the U.S. in August 2010 – a 400 percent increase from 2007.
The mismatch can be seen most prominently in the manufacturing and construction industries, the sectors in which more than 64 percent of the 8.3 million jobs lost during the recession occurred.
However, 86 percent of newly created jobs during the current economic recovery have been in healthcare and education industries, leaving an estimated 1.1 million unemployed construction workers and 560,000 unemployed manufacturing workers whose skills don't match jobs that are currently in demand.
Researchers found that the most common reasons employers had trouble filling positions included a lack of experience or qualified applicants available, a shortage of technical skills and subpar knowledge of the business or academic disciplines, and a dearth of formal qualifications required for the position.
