“We have a labor market in which there are both more people looking for jobs and, at the same time, there are more employers looking for people to fill those jobs than there are people who can fill those jobs,” says Jake Hirsch-Allen, head of workforce development for LinkedIn across North America. “For a long time, we’ve been talking about a skills gap, a skills mismatch, an inability to communicate skills appropriately, or effectively, so that one can literally match people to jobs better.”

WorkingNation sat down with Hirsch-Allen at Presented by JFF Horizons – See Beyond 2022 in New Orleans. 

He works with governments, workforce development organizations, and more to leverage LinkedIn Talent Solutions to close skills gaps and increase sustainable employment.

Hirsch-Allen says he believes this skills gap is creating a deeper level of despair in the country right now. “[It’s] a lack of hope in the possibility that any of those jobs that are available to a given individual will be able to provide them with the sort of living wage, the life of opportunity that in the past motivated people to go to work.”

He says that making people more aware of pathways to better skills and jobs is crucial. “[Solving]the challenges with today’s labor market in part come from career development, a concept that is obviously fundamental to workforce development. There’s more awareness now of coaching and mentorship and the value of human beings in a system, which I appreciate.”

Hirsch-Allen says he sees LinkedIn’s role in this solution as providing technology so that career developers can spend more time with their clients, helping them navigate the workforce system.

“To give hope to an individual that there is a career that’s right for them – a meaningful job that will allow them to support their family – often requires another human being to walk them through that process to literally inspire them as a human.”

Learn more about LinkedIn Talent Solutions.