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Workforce development trends to watch in 2012

The looming exodus of baby boomers, growth of a multi-cultural and multi-generational workforce, and demand for a higher skilled and educated workforce are several of the key workforce trends facing individuals, companies and communities. As we look ahead to 2012 and begin planning workforce development activities it’s helpful to look at recent and upcoming trends identified by thought leaders and futurists in the workforce development arena.

Dr. John Sullivan, called the “Michael Jordan of hiring” by Fast Company, offers his top 10 trends in talent management and recruiting for 2012. Deloitte presents its 2011 list for human resource trends in two categories, revolution and evolution, offering a comprehensive perspective for each of its 12 trends. Top Workplace Trends According to HR Professionals, issued by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), compares trends from 2003 to 2009 and documents trends for 2011. Examining trends and exploring perspectives that inform the battle for talent will be an important priority for organizations and communities as they seek to remain competitive in the new economy.

Women's economic opportunity and economic development

While women constitute 50% of the global population, they do not have access to 50% of global wealth. A recent article by Richard Florida on women's economic opportunity as well as one from The Economist highlight that economic inequality between men and women is prevalent in many countries around the world. Although there have been gains in achieving gender equality in recent decades, there is still work to be done, and providing economic opportunity to women should be key economic development goal for communities. In fact, a recent Kauffman Foundation report suggests that expanding entrepreneurship among women could help to grow the American economy. Not only does a woman's income help to pull her family out of poverty, but it also leads to wider economic development and growth for communities and regions. The Martin Prosperity Institute's Global Women's Index underscored the correlation between women's economic equity and key measures of greater economic development including innovation, productivity and entrepreneurship; noting that where women have access to economic opportunity, economic development is greater. Local EDOs, Chambers of Commerce and other economic development entities can take the lead in ensuring that women have equal opportunity and access to services provided to the broader entrepreneur and small business community.

Assessing creativity and culture as economic drivers

The central place of creativity and culture to economic prosperity is now well established. With this recognition come a number of increasingly sophisticated indicators and planning tools to support growing the cultural and broader creative economies. The Global Creativity Index, for instance, is an innovative tool and set of indicators that ranks countries internationally on the basis of a broader conception of economic prosperity. It seeks to shift the discussion from a narrow view of competitiveness to a broader focus on creativity, prosperity, and well-being.

Another recent example is a new report by the City of Toronto entitled "From the Ground Up: Growing Toronto's Cultural Sector," which examines the relationship between culture, economy and space in the city of Toronto. The report argues that a strong cultural sector has a variety of positive impacts on the city's competitiveness, prosperity and quality of place. As one of the contributors to the report, The Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) at the University of Toronto developed a new metric for quantifying the cultural economy within a city. The Cultural Location Index (CLI) includes three major aspects of the cultural economy: the share of artists and cultural workers living in a census tract, the share of cultural workers working in a census tract, and the number cultural facilities in that census tract. Because no single data source can give a full picture on its own, the CLI was developed to provide a tool to assess the concentration of the cultural activity to inform planning and economic development decisions in the context of the emerging creative economy.

Regions driving investment

There is a considerable amount of discussion in the economic development field about the rise of “global cities”, “megapolitan regions”, and "global cities", with some even calling this the global economy’s “metropolitan moment”. A new Brookings Institution report titled Global Metro Monitor 2011: Volatility, Growth and Recovery (including a nifty interactive map) provides some useful insight into production, consumption and trade in the world’s largest metropolitan economies, including a key finding that the global economic slowdown did not alter the continued ascendance of emerging metropolitan areas as locations for economic investment. Economic developers should be well aware of the mega-region concept and how their community contributes to the larger urban region. As the economy continues to evolve, economic developers will need to identify opportunities to collaborate with others across their respective regions in efforts to drive investment and elevate their region’s prominence in a global economy.