October 2004
 


By Tracey Meek, GMA SHRM President

In a recent meeting on workforce issues and trends that I was involved with, we discussed a report by the Rand Corporation, titled, "The 21st Century at Work: Forces Shaping the Future Workforce and Workplace in the United States," by Lynn Karoly and Constantijn Panis. (The report was prepared for the U.S. Department of Labor and can be found at this link, http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG164/MG164.sum.pdf). I found the summary report to be very informative and thought I would share some of the highlights as these trends and issues are with us today and will continue to shape our work as human resources professionals in the future.

Highlights from "The 21st Century at Work: Forces Shaping the Future Workforce and Workplace in the United States."

Key Findings:

1. The workforce in the U.S. will grow, but at a considerably slower rate than in past years. There will be a greater balance in the distribution of participants by age, sex, and race/ethnicity. This slower growth will present a challenge to employers as they recruit workers during periods of strong economic growth.

a. Including more women (with children) and individuals with disabilities will help increase the growth of the workforce.
b. Immigration policy may also help with increasing the size of the workforce.

2. The pace at which technology is changing will continue to increase rapidly over the next 10-15 years.

a. Create an increase in demand for higher skilled labor.
b. Will support higher productivity growth.
c. Change the organizational structure of businesses and the nature of employment relationships.

3. Economic globalization will be even more expansive than before.
a. This will affect industries that in the past were relatively isolated from trade-related competition.
b. This will create job losses in some sectors while creating new employment opportunities in others.

4. Due to advances in technology and the changing global markets, skills preparation and the ability for the workforce to adapt to changing product demand will be essential.

a. Need for skills in problem-solving, communication and collaboration.
b. Focus on continuing education for all workers.
c. Increase in training being delivered electronically.

5. Forces moving firms to more decentralized forms of business organization.

a. Outsourcing non-core functions.
b. Increasing number of nonstandard types of employment relationships such as "e-lancers", self-employed workers and telecommuting.
c. Changing employment relationships will have a direct impact on the types of compensation packages that will be offered.
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