BRIDGING THE SKILLS GAP IN TODAY’S INDUSTRY 2
The Skills Gap in Today’s Industry
A skills gap in an organization defines a substantial difference between the capabilities of
its workforce and its ideal requirements in terms of skills and talent. It is a point at which most
employers in an industry cannot find graduates with the relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities
to implement expected tasks. In other cases, many employees lack experience and fail to deliver
to the expectations of their employers (Nijhof & Brandsma, 2013). A 2011 survey by
PricewaterhouseCoopers and The Atlantic Council covering forty thousand employers in thirty-
nine countries revealed that thirty-four percent of the employers could not find suitable
employees for various positions. Some of the causes of this disparity encompass low college
graduation rates, poor results from automated job matches, inadequate compensation offers,
limited or no vocational training, and the ever-evolving job market (PricewaterhouseCoopers &
The Atlantic Council, 2011). To solve these, states must improve the coordination between
employers and educational institutions, shift educational policies to focus on jobs, perform on-
the-job trainings, and design programs that address diversity and globalization.
According to Paton (2012), a wide disconnect exists between educational institutions and
the expectations of the employers for whom they train. While some jobs require practical
experiences, many institutions offer theory classes and assume that the students will adapt as
soon as they get the job. To solve this problem, universities and other colleges must enhance
their cooperation with organizations employing graduates. Such collaborations can allow
students in their final years of study to take practical job experiences in the company and get
used to the requirements at the working environment. In this way, organizations may be sure to
have competent first-time graduates without requiring any job experience from them (Cappelli,
2012).
