New ways to teach highly demanded skills more effectively
Employers cannot find enough talent to perform certain skills due to changing demands from employers and economic changes.
There are two mainly two skill gaps: digital skills and the manual high-skill gap.
1/2 Digital Skills Gap (~1M jobs) – supply of talent with technical skills (engineering, data, IT, tech) is limited due to fast technological change. Many of these are suitable for vocational training:
The digital skills gap is widening fast. Here's how to bridge it
Bootcamps: bootcamps have become the main model to rapidly train technical talent to bridge this skills gap. There are a few innovations to their model when compared to traditional higher education or traditional vocational pathways
"Last-Mile Training" to train graduates in high-demand skills and tools is on the rise
"Employers are seeking skills like Pardot (marketing), Marketo (digital marketing), Google Adwords (digital marketing), ZenDesk Plus (customer service), NetSuite (finance), Financial Force (finance), Workday (HR), and the CRM platform Salesforce – the most popular SaaS platform in American businesses.
According to Burning Glass, jobs demanding Salesforce experience have quadrupled in the past five years; in 2017, more than 300,000 open positions called for Salesforce skills" Ryan Craig, 2019
Not enough training opportunities: current vocational training funnels are not supplying enough talent to employers, and are not covering many of the skills that employers need. This training is mostly done through Community Colleges (associate degrees, diplomas, certificates), career colleges (national certificates provided by for-profit colleges), trade schools (public schools) and Job Corps (free training for vocations).
Outcome-based financing are solving a current incentive misalignment issue by providing training that is aligned with the desired results for students
COVID has increased interest in self-driven learning and shorter-term industry certificates
A recent RCT into workforce training program YearUp showed 30-40% income gains five years after the bootcamp, which create a similar treatment effect to the student than a college degree.