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Foundational or 'soft' skills occupy an unusual position in the debate over America's workforce. Employers say these skills are hard to find, but they are also notoriously hard to define. Soft skills are called crucial and then treated dismissively in the next breath, as if these were abilities any child should have. 'Works well with others' is a cliche on a school report card, but businesses grind to a halt when employees can't meet deadlines, treat customers with respect, or waste time scrambling to properly format a document. In this report, we try and define these skills based on what employers actually demand in job postings, and measure how difficult they are to find in the job market. Essentially, we have let employers speak for themselves. A skill requested in job ads across almost every industry and occupation, regardless of its actual requirements, is clearly a baseline qualification in the job market. And when employers demand a skill in a way that's out of proportion to the traditional definitions of what a job requires, it's likely that skill is both important and hard to find.

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This report analyzes the job market demand for coding skills in order to highlight the breadth and magnitude of employer demand for these skills and the range of opportunities that learning to code can open for students. The intent of this research is to showcase for school counselors and K-12 students alike the importance of learning to code and the value these skills will have in the job market. The data contained in this report are drawn from 26 million US online job postings collected in 2015 and have been analyzed to determine the specific jobs and skills that employers are seeking.

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In trying to understand the job market, an effective skills taxonomy is crucial: it is how you take the tremendous amount of data available from job postings and turn it into actionable insights. This white paper looks at how an effective taxonomy allows for detailed analysis of the job market at the level of individual skills. The Burning Glass Technologies global skills taxonomy has been developed over 20 years of experience and tested it in real-world job market conditions. The white paper explains how the taxonomy powers Burning Glass Technologies products and provides insight to employers, educators and government officials.

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[This report] reveals that the demand for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) talent is significantly greater than commonly reported, and the supply of STEM college graduates continues to lag far behind employer STEM talent needs. Key findings include: (1) In 2013, there were 5.7 million total postings in STEM fields. Of those, 76 per cent, or 4.4 million, require at least a bachelor's degree, and 41 per cent, or 2.3 million, are entry-level jobs requiring less than 2 years of experience; (2) 48 per cent of all entry-level jobs requiring a bachelor's degree or higher (BA+) are in STEM fields, while only 29 per cent of bachelor's degree graduates earn a STEM degree; (3) At the sub-baccalaureate level (SubBA), 24 per cent of entry-level jobs are in STEM fields, while 32 per cent of Sub-BA degrees are in STEM concentrations; (4) There are 2.5 entry-level job postings for each new 4-year graduate in STEM fields compared to 1.1 postings for each new BA graduate in non-STEM fields and; (5) STEM jobs offer a substantial salary premium. The average advertised salary for entry-level STEM jobs requiring a BA or higher is $66,123 compared to $52,299 for non-STEM jobs. This difference of approximately $14,000 represents a 26 per cent premium. At the Sub-BA level, the average advertised entry level salary is $47,856 for STEM jobs and $37,424 for non-STEM jobs. This difference of over $10,000 represents a 28 per cent premium.

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The coronavirus [Coronavirus Disease 2019] pandemic has done something no foreign power, economic recession, or natural disaster could ever do: it has brought the American job market as close as it has ever come to a sudden, shuddering halt. And simply lifting social distancing restrictions isn't going to be enough to restart it again. A mere two months ago, amidst a booming job market, there were only 216,000 new claims for unemployment insurance filed. By April 30, there were 3.9 million new claims filed on top of 26 million already in the system – so many that the unemployment insurance agencies can't keep up. New US job postings fell 43 per cent in five weeks. In this paper, Burning Glass offers a starting point for the massive and urgent short-term reemployment challenge before us: identifying the work that is available and suggesting how to get workers into those jobs. Our approach is based on an understanding of how different occupations overlap in terms of knowledge, education, experience, and most of all, the skills required. By building pathways between occupations, by understanding exactly which skills distinguish one job from the next, we can move workers into the jobs that exist with the most efficient use of time and resources.

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This analysis of shifting workforce credential requirements finds a broad range of occupations where employers are seeking a bachelor's degree for jobs that formerly required less education, even when the actual skills required haven't changed or when this makes the position harder to fill. This phenomenon of 'upcredentialing', where employers seek college graduates for positions that used to require a high school diploma or other sub-baccalaureate training, has been much discussed but rarely quantified. The authors compared the education levels of workers currently employed in an occupation - a measure of past employer preferences - with the education levels employers are currently demanding for the same occupation. The analysis finds strong evidence of changes in the American workforce, with notable shifts in the qualifications employers are seeking. Increasingly, employers are seeking baccalaureate talent for what have historically been sub-baccalaureate jobs. Labor analysts have generally pointed to two possible explanations for this degree inflation: either jobs are becoming more complex and require new skills (known as 'upskilling'), or employers have become more selective and favour more educated workers. This analysis suggests both possibilities are at work, depending on the specific occupation.

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This report examines the barriers preventing people from switching careers as well as how confident people are at recognising their own transferable skills. The report includes findings from research undertaken by YouGov to better understand attitudes of consumers towards jobs in the current climate and analysis of UK job data. Those aged 25-34 are most reluctant to change careers, finding the lack of knowledge of other jobs, worries about starting all over again, the cost of retraining, and the salaries of other careers, more concerning than any other age group. Analysis of the job market in the UK reveals that hiring has clearly slowed down. However, in some sectors, demand for certain roles is on the up - industries that are actively recruiting include construction, digital, engineering, land, and health.

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The Energy sector is one of the most critical industries in the country and has dominated headlines in recent months - how is the sector evolving and what opportunities can a career in the sector offer? The role of the energy sector has always been vital, but recent months have seen it dominating headlines as costs have risen and the need for a shift towards renewables has become ever more apparent. The government have laid out ambitious plans to expand hydrogen, offshore wind, and nuclear power in the UK. Government plans for growing the hydrogen sector will see the creation of 8000 new jobs, while the offshore wind sector will need 60,000 by 2030. Clearly, there is an urgent need to attract more people into the energy industry, both from young people entering the workforce and older workers transitioning from the fossil fuel sector and other industries with transferable skills.

However, the sector continues to experience acute and ongoing skills shortages and the challenges of an aging workforce, with 29 per cent of the energy workforce over the age of 50. While jobs in energy can often come with high salaries, many people feel that they lack the necessary skills and experience to enter the field, as well as a lack of understanding of the roles available. Solving this skills shortage will mean increasing awareness of the routes into careers in this sector, the transferable skills that can be applied and reaching out to new talent pools.

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Essential job roles are often overlooked and undervalued. The [Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)] pandemic only highlighted the critical importance of these jobs to the running of society and also the post-pandemic economic recovery. In the UK, essential jobs can be categorised into 10 key job sectors: education; construction; energy and utilities; government and public service jobs; IT, communications and finance; transport and logistics; healthcare; social care; food production, agriculture and animal care; and retail. There are a wide range of essential jobs within each of these sectors, often requiring very different levels of education, paying very different salaries, and with very different demographics. In the UK, 16 million (50 per cent) of jobs in the UK are essential with 3.1 million essential job openings expected over the next five years.

This research, carried out by City and Guilds in partnership with labour market economists Emsi Burning Glass, found that many of those businesses operating in essential sectors are particularly impacted by a lack of available skills and labour. Does the workforce simply not exist? Or are people put off by negative perceptions and outdated stereotypes? What is broken that needs to be fixed or reconfigured? Surveying 10,000 working age people to understand their attitudes towards essential jobs, this research aims to help understand how - and why - essential roles are perceived in the way they are. Overall, the research found that whilst people value these jobs in principle, they tend not to consider essential roles as a desirable career for themselves or their children. These roles are often seen as unattractive due to their lack of flexible working practices, poor working conditions, highly specialised skillsets and low pay.

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All workers will need to adapt and learn new skills over their careers, but some skills stand the test of time. Because workers can use these skills to navigate transitions across virtually any industry, these 'transportable skills' learned in K-12 programs have lifelong value. This report examines workforce demand for five such skills taught to millions of students each year in Project Lead The Way (PLTW) PreK-12 programs: collaboration, problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, communication, and ethical reasoning and mindset. This research demonstrates the importance of providing students with insights about their transportable skills and abilities so they can hone and communicate them in the future.

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