America, Now Hiring All Across the Country!

America is at full employment.

Maybe not every job is ideal and there is no doubt that wages dont’t go as far as they used to, but if you want to work there are many options out there.

However we still have significant skills shortages.

For me it seems that the biggest reason is that we are not openly integrating new immigrants.

We also have a large % of the existing workforce that needs up-skill training.

Our vocational skills education is a mess. Small business entrepreneurship is a mess. It’s very hard and costly to start a business and it’s hard to find people to build it with you.

Integrating immigrants into the workforce has always been a centerpiece of the growth of the American economy. However, lately we are not taking advantage of this constant flow of new labor and in demand skills.

As I drove across my Nevada yesterday I saw many hiring signs. From casinos in Reno to Walmarts in small towns like Elko and Winnemucca I saw now hiring signs in Spanish and English.

I saw a big now hiring sign at the Sherwin-Williams paint factory and I saw now hiring signs at just about every fast food restaurant in every truck stop or gas station along interstate 80 going across Nevada and into Utah.

The same is true where I am from in California, the city of Concord is your typical suburban and just about everyone is hiring for service jobs. Vocational skill based jobs are constantly open as are high skilled jobs. If we are at full employment, where are the workers all these companies need?

As I drive across this great country, I find myself wondering how many businesses are not able to fill positions they have open because of the downturn in immigration?

Our recent hyper enforcement against illegal immigration in combination with not rebooting our legal immigration system to be more realistic of domestic labor markets is at the heart of all these now hiring signs.

In addition, poor coordination by state and local governments to offer vocational skills training, the current workforce is not able to take the jobs that are currently open.

Key Data Point: The U.S. has over 6.5 Million Jobe Openings. The U.S. also has about as many unemployed. Source: (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm

The Big Takeaway: What the numbers above illustrate is one of the key problems that has plagued the U.S. labor market in recent years. Job seekers tend to lack the skills in demand, they’re not willing to move to jobs that are available. Historically immigration mitigates his as migrants are more likely to fill jobs as needed and are more likely to move towards open jobs. If we don’t manage immigration better, we will see a wider gap between job openings and job seekers.

From my perspective, there is a strong connection between economic stability and prosperity of the workforce and healthy immigration.

So I ask myself what are the key factors that we need to demonstrate in order to influence voters politicians and decision-makers of this connection?

What needs to happen for everyone to be able to understand the value of a sound immigration policy, in conjunction with upscale training?

How best to illustrate value of more strategically laying out jobs for people and communities by accepting demographic realities?

We need to have discussons where current planning has failed to give our communities like the ones I am seeing across the rural American west better opportunities for economic prosperity, by acknowledging the need to replenish the workforce from without and to augment the workforce within our borders.

Dan Meyer heads Sonic Analytics, an analytics advocacy with offices in Manila and the San Francisco Bay Area. With over 20 years in Big Data, Dan is one of the most sought-after public speakers in Asia and has recently begun offering public training seminars in the United States.

Sonic Analytics(www.sonicanalytics.com) brings big data analytics solutions like business intelligence, business dashboards and data storytelling to small and medium sized organizations looking to enhance their data-driven decision-making capabilities. We also advocate the use of analytics for civic responsibility through training, consulting and education.

As citizens of this great democracy, we need to look at the data (analytics), plan a course of action (strategy) and share our data-driven viewpoints (presentation). This approach to a data savvy work force starts in school. So, we started an internship program to empower our youth to use Analytics, plan Strategy and Present their insights… ASP!

When not training current and future analysts, you can find Dan championing the use of analytics to empower data-driven citizenship. His latest causes include supporting a 3rd Party initiative called the Service America Movement — SAM (joinsam.org), a non-profit providing legal assistance for immigrants known as RAICES and (raicestexas.org) and Immigrant Families Together — an effort to unite immigrant families (www.facebook.com/ImmigrantFamiliesTogether).