Conference Presentation, Panel, Fireside Chat
Preparing California for the Future of Work
Milken InstituteJane Oates, Jay Banfield, Rob Bonta, Ellen Junn, Phil Mathews, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Ardine Williams
- The Aerospace Corporation projects surpassing $1 billion in revenue and 4,000 employees in 2018, accompanied by plans to hire over 500 staff this year (400 technical) and 300 interns next year.
- Forecasts indicate a future scarcity of 750,000 software engineering jobs against 300,000 available graduates within the next few years, exacerbating a projected U.S. deficit of 12 million workers for middle-skilled roles by 2024.
- Unfilled cybersecurity positions are expected to rise significantly by 2018, with 60,000 roles potentially fillable by candidates with specific training but no four-year degree, a gap that may cause two-thirds of companies to overlook qualified applicants due to degree requirements.
- Amazon has generated 250,000 full-time jobs in the U.S. and averaged 130 new jobs per week in California since 2013, supported by a $50 million investment in K-12 STEM and computer science education, including a one-year cloud support apprenticeship and 8-to-12-week internships.
- California faces a projected deficit of one million employees with four-year degrees by 2030, a challenge the state addresses through P-TECH models creating 9-through-14 academies for associate degrees, despite the CSU currently turning away 30,000 eligible students annually and losing graduates to other states.
- The California State University system, which supports 3.4 million alumni and graduates 100,000 new students yearly, is expanding into new fields like food safety and offering four cybersecurity master's degrees while responding to a soft skills gap identified by LinkedIn as the primary skill shortage.
- Workforce strategies emphasize the necessity of continuous upskilling and reskilling given the average American's tenure of 7 to 11 jobs between ages 22 and 25, alongside calls for increased state funding from preschool through higher education and better integration of local internship networks similar to the 300-company Year Up model.