Looking Back to See Ahead Concept Paper

Executive Summary

What is a workforce intermediary? This paper is an attempt to answer this and other questions. In a time where finding and keeping talent is a real issue, our purpose is to provide a history and offer solutions. In Edward Gordon’s White Paper titled America’s Meltdown: Why We Are Losing the Skills Wars and What We Can Do About It, he presents two linked problems in the United States: the growing gap between education and skills as well as a serious worker shortage. The lack of adequate education for much of the American population, which renders many incapable of filling the high-tech jobs of the 21^st century, has put the U.S. at a disadvantage in the global skills war. Losing this war against other countries can result in an increased number of jobs going overseas which would only exacerbate the worker shortage the country faces due to the lack of qualified workers to fill vacant high-tech and technician jobs. While the white paper was published in 2003, there is no doubt that the country still faces both problems. The solution Gordon proposes to address both issues is to expand the education programs so that the education system better prepares students for various technician jobs that are facing labor shortages.

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