Skills Gap Leading to More Jobs Being Created than US Companies Can Fill: Study

The growth of the US economy is creating thousands of jobs, but those jobs are not being filled fast enough, fueling debates about whether a skills gap has led to this reality.

The number of job openings soared by 645,000 in January, but overall hiring increased by a much smaller amount than job openings, according to the LA Times, citing data from the Labor Department.

In information technology, for example, there are 17% more jobs open than there are available workers.

The latest report confirms data in a joint survey by IT contractor Harvey Nash Group and consulting firm KPMG, which found that six in ten US tech companies are struggling to hire skilled technology workers.

With employers vying to pick up the best talent available, many companies are rising salaries in order to attract more applicants.

Three weeks ago, Upwork, a freelancing website, found an increasing number of Silicon Valley firms hiring remote teams to get work done amid the skills gap. In the survey, as many as 39% of HR managers stated that hiring had gotten more difficult in the past year.

To get around the talent shortage in the areas they operate, companies are turning to remote workers. Over half (55%) of hiring managers surveyed agreed that remote work has become more commonplace in comparison to three years ago.

As US economic sectors are heavily disrupted by technology, there has been an endless demand for people with IT skills.

Companies are focusing more on training, sourcing new talent through apprenticeships, and looking at atypical pools of candidates who have transferable skills. However, training programs have been slow to ramp up the complex skills needed, say analysts.