We spend a lot of time talking with job seekers about transferable skills. But according to this article from Bloomberg, we need to be concerned about impact of long-term unemployment on "perishable skills":
Industries with highly perishable skill sets include health-care technology, telecommunications, and finance, where regulations have changed dramatically in the past year. The toughest, though, may be information technology. Companies in that sector have cut payrolls for 32 of the last 33 months, through June, for a cumulative loss of some 312,000 jobs, or about 10 percent.
In technology, “if you’ve been out of work for a year or two, you’re probably somewhat outdated,” says Shami Khorana, president of HCL America, the U.S. arm of New Delhi-based HCL Technologies Ltd., which employs about 5,000 workers in the U.S. He plans to hire at least an additional 600 people as the economy improves and anticipates retraining some candidates with obsolete skills.
Unemployed workers in construction, retail, low-level health-care jobs, and teaching are more likely to be attractive to employers once hiring picks up because such jobs don’t change as quickly, experts say.
As we serve more people who have been unemployed for longer periods of time, we need to be sure that we're talking to people in industries where skills get old quickly about ways that they can keep skills up-to-date, including:
- Internships--these work even for experienced people.
- Volunteer projects--many nonprofits would LOVE to have experienced people help them with their websites or finances.
- Contract work--Freelancing is a great way to keep skills up to date.
- Participating in workshops and other training opportunities.
