Skills Gap Leaves Thousands of STEM Jobs Open

Despite recent economic improvements and job growth, there still exist thousands of unfilled positions nationwide, and employers can't seem to find job-seekers with the necessary skills. That's particularly true in New York City, where middle-skill jobs in the health care and information technology sectors go unfilled for a month on average. 

A new report from JPMorgan Chase details the skills gap that exists for many middle-skill occupations – those jobs that require some education or training beyond a high school degree. The problem stems in part from the fact that education and workforce development institutions aren't as closely aligned with these sectors to meet the growing demand. That creates an issue for both employers and those looking for work.

"There are thousands of good-paying jobs available right now in New York City, but many job-seekers don’t have the skills to get these jobs and employers don’t know how to find qualified workers," says Chauncy Lennon, head of workforce initiatives at JPMorgan Chase. "We have a lot of opportunity to help New Yorkers … if we can get them into training for these skills."

[SPECIAL REPORT: STEM Solutions]

In all, the report found there are 25,000 unfilled middle-skill jobs in the health care sector, which is expected to grow by 14 percent over the next five years. In information technology, there are 8,100 jobs, and the sector is expected to grow by 15 percent in the same time. Those jobs – such as registered nurses, lab technicians and information security analysts – also pay more than the living wage standards, usually around $25 an hour.  

The skills gap is a problem employers are seeing across the country, Lennon says, but it's important to take the time to drill down data specific to each area and not to generalize on a national scale. 

"If you just took an average nationally … it might make it seem as if there are a lot of health care jobs in a city where there are not any health care jobs," Lennon says. "We need data so each market, each city, each metro area is able to understand what their specific characteristics are and design a specific response based on those characteristics."

Overall, STEM employment in the United States has ballooned in the last 13 years, from 12.8 million jobs (as defined by the U.S. government) in 2000 to 16.8 million in 2013, according to the U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index. A February report by Burning Glass Technologies indicated the STEM job market is actually far larger than that. 

“But STEM is not just about tech companies. It’s not just about people who wear lab coats," says William Swanson, Raytheon Company chairman. "STEM skills are needed in the many millions of jobs that will have to be filled in sectors such as energy, manufacturing, food production and perhaps most significantly, health care. What industry does not need more workers with science and math know-how? And not just at the high end. Having STEM skills could mean making it into the middle class, or not.” 

In order to address the gap, Lennon, who oversees JP Morgan Chase's New Skills at Work program, says employers need to work more closely with education and training institutions to give job-seekers and students more experiential opportunities that can help them develop the skills employers want and need. The New Skills at Work program is a five-year, $250 million initiative on education and workforce training that will produce data reports for nine major U.S. cities and four European countries examining the skills gap specific to those areas. 

"We need to do a better job of letting people know these opportunities exist," Lennon says. "We don’t have the infrastructure either through schools or other kinds of community groups that let young job-seekers know about these specific types of jobs and the pathways they need to get on to get these jobs."