"This is absolutely a rare window for young workers because the demand is real, funded, and seemingly long-term," Fraser Patterson, CEO of Skillit, stated. "These are not speculative jobs. They are tied to multi-decade investment cycles, and they offer a path to strong earnings, skill development, and stability without requiring a traditional four-year degree."
American healthcare has long suffered from a structural mismatch: the system generates enormous demand for patient communication while the clinical workforce available to meet it continues to shrink. The World Health Organization projects a global shortage of 10 million health workers by 2030, and the gap is already visible in overloaded intake queues, missed follow-up calls, and patients left without support between appointments.
Maurice White, 75, and Renee DeVigne, 68, are among the millions of family caregivers in the U.S. whose lives center around caring for aging loved ones. The Washington, D.C. couple has gone to extraordinary lengths, into their own retirement years, to take care of family elders. They've cared for White's mother Evelyn White in their home for 25 years. The retired teacher turned 104 in October. She's one of the last of their elders they will care for.
Richard Brodsky, the founder of software company Sandata and founder and chairman of Mobile Health, saw a problem when it came to hiring more home care aides. It took time to clear them medically and get approvals from their doctors. So in true entrepreneurial spirit, he rolled out mobile and then fixed clinics to test prospective aides, getting results within two days while developing CareConnect, a company to train aides, so those who qualify could get to work.
But at the city's only free, in-person addiction and recovery counseling certification program, housed at City College, there are waitlists for nearly every class. Graduates of the program can take an exam to become state-certified substance use disorder counselors - the exact people Lurie says San Francisco needs - but City College isn't pumping out a battalion of counselors. Why not? Money, and a dearth of classes.
That reality hit hard at the Energy & Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh last month, hosted by Senator Dave McCormick, Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian, and a remarkable roster of business executives, industry leaders, and federal cabinet secretaries. Pennsylvania sits at the center of this future-with the Marcellus Shale, leading universities, and advanced manufacturing hubs powering some of the nation's most ambitious energy projects.
The country is experiencing an acute shortage of planning professionals, which is hindering construction progress and contributing to growing workloads and burnout among existing planners.
