America is a country of two labour markets, with jobs aplenty for PhDs and even more for burger flippers, but not enough in between. This is a problem in an economy that consists largely of consumer spending. Donald Trump rose to office promising to bring back those middle-class jobs. But even if the US president were able to reverse globalisation and technological job disruption, the homegrown problem remains: the skills gap.
Deloitte points to 3.5m well-paid manufacturing jobs that will need to be filled in the US by 2025. Yet 2m will remain unfilled by Americans because neither high schools nor colleges are turning out enough technology literate and communications savvy students. The missing workers include everyone from factory workers who know how to use robotics equipment to entrepreneurial middle managers who can navigate across a variety of technologies, industries and geographies.
Andrew Liveris, chief executive of Dow Chemical, and Ginni Rometty of IBM, both advisers to the president, are promoting a workforce-training programme. Their scheme could help bridge those skills gaps and become a significant lever for the two politically contentious areas of education reform and industrial policy.