By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance
In less than three weeks, Colorado employers and educators will begin what many feel is a long-overdue process of identifying the greatest shortages in skills for in-demand jobs and working in partnership to create career pathways to fill those gaps.
As simple as that collaboration may sound on paper, it is an idea that too many business leaders, as well as many K-12 and college officials, say has not germinated due to a lack of communication between the institutions that train the workforce and those who employ it.
And the disconnect between those wanting to work and those wanting to hire workers has never been clearer. Colorado had 134,000 job openings late last year — the highest total of any state, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — yet also a 4.4% unemployment rate, demonstrating the poor fit between the skills owned by job seekers and those needed by job creators.