Closing the gap between job needs and getting degrees
Just over a week ago, business policy group ReadyNation released a report saying Illinois could be short 150,000 qualified workers in a variety of fields by the year 2020. ReadyNation says the number 150,000 comes from the fact that 69 percent of the 2.3 million job openings in Illinois require postsecondary education, but only 62 percent of Illinoisans have reached this level of education, creating a 7 percent gap — or 150,000 workers. Inevitably, this is a situation that brings a plethora of economic issues for the state of Illinois, such as making the state less competitive, and the apparent solution, according to Sean Noble, state director of ReadyNation, is putting more funds into early childhood education.


















