Last week, Dominik Kraus, a physicist from Germany, presented exciting research stating that diamonds may be surprisingly abundant on other planets.  That which is precious in one place may be available in the form of a ‘diamond rain” in other places.  The role of labor market analysts is somewhat similar.  You are to track global labor market trends, present them to your leadership, and convert them into action.  This week, I was privileged to visit Seattle and South East Asian countries and meet with workforce planners and Recruiters.  Also, interacted with several leaders who work closely in EMEA and LatAM markets and operate from places like Singapore.  Here are some exciting labor market trends to begin this week’s email.

• The pressure to get the right hire, especially on the experienced hire side, is at the highest levels.  The complex state of perceived slowed down in the economy coupled with higher talent demand means that the margin of errors in execution is almost negligible.  From a talent acquisition standpoint, we recommend a different way of looking at the ecosystem through priority scenarios.  This approach can accelerate your hiring process (the second part of the email describes this a bit more)
• Japan did not witness much of the great resignation phenomenon.  Japan has operated slightly differently than the rest of the world.  The culture of long employment with one company is still a trend in many enterprises.  According to the communications ministry, only 4.3% of the working population changed jobs in 2021, which is 0.5% lower than the previous year.  Some disagree with this and say there will be more job changes in 2022.   Japanese leaders emphasized the practice of increased communications and creating more internal opportunities in digital areas where Japanese companies want to grow, preventing the loss of the Workforce.
• Our analysis showed that Germany had created several apprenticeships and training programs.  Through these programs, about 20% of their Workforce has transformed into digital areas from other disrupted skills in the last five years.  This result is an outstanding achievement as many countries rely more on global locations as a singular strategy for their digital strategy.  Germany has also amplified and refined its migration policy to attract global talent
• Brazil has been making strides in innovation in this decade.  The Brazil patent office noted that there had been an increase in patent applications of over 80% in the last decade.
• The corridor Indonesia- Thailand- Vietnam-Philippines is rapidly transforming; with low-code/no-code, several knowledge workers in the Philippines could become an ideal talent pool for Citizens Developers.  Our analysis shows that Indonesia is building robust Java capabilities that are the foundation for many platforms and tools
• The VC funds activity in Norwegian locations continues to remain strong, especially in computer vision and AI/ML space
• The MIT review published an interesting article on historical trends in Diversity.  Software Programming was once an almost entirely female profession.  As recently as 1980, women held 70% of the programming jobs in Silicon Valley.  Women technicians once outnumbered male workers on the valley’s hardware assembly lines.  This trend completely flipped over time. 
• Companies have to address Diversity as a priority.  The US venture capital industry made a record investment of 329 billion dollars in 2021.  Only 2% to 3% of this went to women-owned startups.  And ethnicity break up is even more shocking on this front.  Skills Mobility and mapping the business initiatives to correct skills can enable diversity growth

All these insights are compelling when we convert them into action items.  HR leaders will have to push the planned initiatives with business leaders aggressively.  The 2008 financial crisis shows several case studies of what happens when a company freezes and misses a significant opportunity.  Here is an interesting case study. 

Ulrich Bez, CEO of Aston Martin, was poised to introduce a luxury crossover SUV in 2008.  Until then, no other car maker in the ultra-luxury segment had produced an SUV.  The board did not approve this plan to invest and scale the production.  As a result, Aston Martin missed a huge segment where players like Bentley and Lamborghini started capturing the market in 2015.  Aston Martin missed the opportunity even though they were well ahead in opportunity identification.   This is sort of the phenomenon we have to try and avoid.

We cannot help in building a new type of SUV, but in the areas of Recruitment, WFP, and skills mobility, we hope to be very proactive and work with you to sustain and grow your initiatives.  As I mentioned initially, looking at critical priority scenarios and what skills you may need will be a beneficial exercise.

Priority Scenario:  How will Metaverse impact our Workforce? 

Metaverse is discussed everywhere, but there is a lot of confusion around how it may impact the Workforce

To translate the Priority Scenario into the Roles and Skills you will require, it is essential to look at the Benefits and Risks such a Priority Scenario will offer.  For example, here is a description of the same

Through such benefits and challenges map, we can develop the skills and experience to implement the Priority Scenario fully.  There may be 5 to 6 priority scenarios we would have to map to identify the common skills required across scenarios.  This type of workforce planning will improve the precision of your execution.