The widely accepted skills mismatch hypothesis has come under fire recently, with implications for local and regional economic development. The debate reveals that a skills mismatch does not exist across the board, but is limited to middle skill jobs, or those requiring education and training beyond high school but less than a bachelor’s degree. Recent policy dialogues have conflated “talent” with a college degree, encouraging practitioners to tie a neat bow of “college for everyone” around the complex challenges of unemployment, a competitive workforce and business viability and compelling the use of local talent chasing strategies. Talent chasing favors low-hanging-fruit approaches, like building coffee shops and artist lofts, or out-competing other jurisdictions for small gains in the percentage of college graduates, rather than driving at the harder work of growing a pipeline of talent in the community.
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