Learning Over A Lifetime

Too many workers lack the skills employers demand. Here’s how to help

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The world’s rich countries face a looming challenge in education: Too many of their citizens lack the skills and credentials for the jobs of the future. To keep people productively engaged in the coming decades and to ensure that economies maintain robust growth, governments, educators, and employers need to make lasting investments in a new class of students: adults.

The trouble for now is demographics. Although the share of people age 18 to 24 going to college is growing, the population of young adults is shrinking in the U.S. and Europe. So college enrollment is largely in decline. Meanwhile, the population of older workers keeps growing. By the middle of the next decade nearly one-quarter of the U.S. workforce will be over 55. Many adults lack the post-high school education and training employers demand.