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Due to a persistent cybersecurity talent shortage, there have been major efforts to increase the supply of cybersecurity workers. But demand has increased as well, which means cybersecurity talent is still expensive and hard to find. Federal data shows the number of postsecondary programs in key cybersecurity areas has increased 33 per cent, and the number of conferrals rose 44 per cent between 2013-17. Yet one key indicator of supply and demand, the ratio of currently employed cybersecurity workers to job openings, has hardly budged since 2015. In other words, the pool of available talent has remained proportionally the same. Based on a database of nearly one billion current and historical job postings, the authors have built a definition of the cybersecurity job market that includes all job openings with cybersecurity-related job titles, skills or certifications. The key findings from this report include: (1) the number of cybersecurity job postings has grown 94 per cent since 2013, compared to only 30 per cent for IT positions overall; (2) cybersecurity jobs account for 13 per cent of all information technology jobs, take longer to fill and pay a greater salary; (3) for most IT workers, cybersecurity is one among many responsibilities rather than a dedicated role; (4) for each cybersecurity opening, there was a pool of only 2.3 employed cybersecurity workers for employers to recruit; (5) demand for automation skills in cybersecurity roles has risen and; (6) public cloud security and knowledge of the Internet of Things are projected to be the fastest-growing skills in cybersecurity over the next five years.

Edited excerpts from publication.

Burning Glass Technologies has been tracking the cybersecurity job market since 2013. Two supporting 'job market intelligence' reports, one from 2014 and one from 2015, accompany this report. Show less

The U.S. labor market is as tight as it has been since the Great Recession, with unemployment at 4.1 per cent in December 2017. Yet employers continue to struggle to find the skilled labor they need. If job creation in the aggregate isn't solving the problem, how can we identify and address the specific places where supply isn't meeting demand? In this report, prepared for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, we examine the skills gap on an occupation-by-occupation basis. This is the best way to both understand the gap, and to close it. An overall surplus of workers doesn't offer much insight into the challenges of a specific industry looking to fill specific roles requiring specific skills. A crucial lesson of this research is that the skills gap is not singular; it is cumulative - the result of different gaps across different kinds of occupations. That is part of why addressing the skills gap has proven so elusive: it defies easy categorization.

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In theory, professional certifications ought to be a key element in addressing the skills gap in the job market - yet in practice, certifications still fall short of their potential. How do employers use these credentials in their hiring process today? What would make certifications more valuable in the job market? In this report, we seek to bring clarity to the debate by using job posting data to examine the market value of industry certifications. Using our database of more than 700 million historical job postings, we are able to track how often employers explicitly ask for certifications, and in what context. Our hope is that this study answers some key questions about credentials: What does the demand for certifications look like in the real world of the market today? What role do certifications play in careers? Where have certifications gained traction with employers and where have they not? Where are the opportunities to develop new certifications that prove successful in resolving the skills gap?

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This report provides an analysis of hybridization in jobs, drawing on data from nearly one billion current and historical job postings. More and more jobs are 'hybrids,' combining skill sets that never used to be found in the same job, such as marketing and statistical analysis, or design and programming. Certain skills are acting as hybridizing forces, spreading across different roles. Fully one-quarter of all occupations in the U.S. economy show strong signs of hybridization, and they are almost universally the fastest-growing and highest-paying - and also the most resistant to automation. Some of these jobs are new, some are new versions of existing jobs, but all of them pose much different challenges for workers, students, employers, and educators. Since Burning Glass Technologies first identified the hybrid trend in a 2015 report [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 137.1118], the pace of change has only increased. This trend has the potential to exacerbate a divide in the workforce, with some workers gaining ground in the future economy, and others - those who fail to keep up with changing skill requirements - at risk of being left behind. But, as jobs get reshaped by new skills and new technologies, there are also clear opportunities: for employers to upskill existing workers and develop more effective talent pipelines; for workers to make themselves more competitive by acquiring new skills ahead of the market; and for education institutions to deliver learning to the broader community of workers who will increasingly need to acquire new skills.

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Middle-skill jobs, roughly defined as those that require more than a high school education but less than a bachelor's degree, comprise 39 per cent of US employment. These jobs matter because they have long sustained a middle-class lifestyle for millions of Americans, and because they're increasingly pressured by changes to the economy. A study of job postings by Burning Glass Technologies found that middle-skill jobs that require digital skills are outpacing those that do not in a wide range of ways: (1) nearly eight in 10 middle-skill jobs require digital skills. Spreadsheet and word processing proficiencies have become a baseline requirement for the majority of middle-skill opportunities (78 per cent); (2) digitally intensive middle-skill occupations are growing faster than other middle-skill jobs. Digitally intensive jobs have grown 2.5 times more rapidly than middle-skill jobs that do not require spreadsheets, word processing, or other digital skills; (3) digitally intensive middle-skill jobs pay more than middle-skill jobs that do not require a digital component. Digitally intensive middle-skill occupations offer 18 per cent higher wages on average: $23.76 per hour compared to $20.14 per hour for all other middle-skill jobs. Since they are growing more rapidly and pay more than other middle-skill jobs, these digitally intensive jobs offer a promising career path for Americans who lack a bachelor's degree.

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This report responds to a request from the National Network of Business and Industry Associations. It highlights the key challenges facing the infrastructure workforce if the United States embarks on a major overhaul of its aging infrastructure. A wave of retirements and changing demand for skills means employers and training providers need to act to ensure there are enough workers, and especially managers, to meet the need. Challenges include: (1) changing demand for skills creating cross-cutting gaps: the changing nature of work creates gaps for key skills across a range of roles because the skills needed today differ from what the existing workforce possesses and what training providers currently offer; (2) misaligned occupational supply and demand: many rapidly growing occupations face supply shortages. There are just not enough new entrants to keep up with employer demand and; (3) occupation-specific skill gaps: in some roles, there may be enough workers to meet demand, but those workers do not have the specific technical skills employers need. The report concludes with possible avenues for future analysis of skill gaps at both an industry and regional level, and recommends the development of new career pathways to address undersupplied occupations or skills.

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This follow-up report to 'The permanent detour: underemployment's long-term effects on the careers of college grads' [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 132.659] examines resume and job posting data in order to identify strategies to increase the likelihood of graduates finding appropriate work. The authors posit three key strategies to maximise career prospects: (1) evaluate the underemployment risk when choosing a major: when examined by major, underemployment rates vary by 50 percentage points, from 29 per cent in engineering to 80 per cent in personal and culinary services, a more than twofold difference in risk; (2) avoid underemployment by building the skills to succeed: for all college majors, the acquisition of specific workplace skills can add up to 20 per cent to a college graduate's earnings. Students in underperforming majors can significantly improve their prospects by selecting a high-demand specialization; and (3) accrue meaningful and relevant work experiences before graduation: internships and other work experience programs can provide students with an opportunity to build skills.

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Credentials Matter is a partnership between ExcelinEd and Burning Glass Technologies. This ongoing, comprehensive research project seeks to understand the industry credential landscape in the United States and provide actionable data analysis and resources for states and the public. Credentials Matter combines ExcelinEd's policy expertise in college and career pathways with Burning Glass' cutting-edge labor market analytics to provide new insights into the alignment between the credentials students earn and the demand for those credentials in the workforce. This project illustrates the credentials available and highlights the outcomes of credential attainment to inform key policy decisions about which pathways and associated credentials lead to middle- and high-wage employment opportunities and continued career advancement for students.

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