CRISIS builds as companies FAIL to find skilled labor

Ajouté : 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Today, if you didn't know, it is National Skilled Trade Day. It's a day to honor and recognize people working in fields like plumbing, construction, manufacturing. It also shines a light on the short supply of skilled labor.

[00:00:13]Joining me now is Eric Cutter. He's the senior partner and chair of North America at Kinsey and Company. Okay. You you work closely with CEOs. How are they rethinking entry- levelvel jobs?

[00:00:24]>> Yeah. A little bit different than the trades conversation, which I think is an important one as well. This is a moment where if you think about the future of our economy, we need to figure out the trades because we can't build the data centers that going to allow AI to be successful. We can't actually take manufacturing back. Super important topic and a day to really celebrate those folks. Um, when I talk to CEOs, there's a whole lot of questions about labor going forward in large part because we don't necessarily have all the labor we want. I think one of the fascinating things we even saw today in the jobs report is we are maintaining full employment with very minimal change in number of jobs which is a very big statement that is different than where we were. What CEOs are struggling with is how do I bring in the right talent while I'm also reskilling all the talent I have and do that with the technology that is available today and the technology available today and the technology as we deploy it going forward. But I am still seeing pretty good hiring across all including us.

[00:01:21]>> Okay. What are these graduates, the people coming out of high school and college?

[00:01:25]>> Yeah.

[00:01:25]>> Are they ready for the workforce?

[00:01:27]There's a lot of criticism that they're not.

[00:01:29]>> Yeah. I'm actually more bullish, frankly, at least in the in the students that we see. I am much more bullish about the folks graduating than frankly the folks that have been in the workforce for eight or 10 years that have to >> because they're much more AI native, >> right? If you actually see how they use the technology in their day-to-day lives, how they've already learned how to build things like skills in the various uh large language models, how they are adapting with agents, they are just much more fluent in how to use this technology to make themselves more productive and more efficient >> when they come to you. Is that what you're looking for?

[00:02:00]>> For sure.

[00:02:01]>> AI, I would say AI native, AI proficient and and intellectually curious. It's hard to learn some of this if you haven't actually done it because it changes what you do and how you do and the nature of your job. And so I have more I would say pause around how hard is it to retrain an existing workforce than come in with these folks that are more native. Now that all said intellectual curiosity is really important. If you just use those agents or that those models to come up with the answer, you're not really doing your job. And so you really have to test for are they inquisitive? Are they asking the questions? Are they challenging the models? And by the way, there's fascinating ways to do that with the model. Ask the model why it did what it did.

[00:02:43]>> Ask it if it could do it a different way. Why could it do it different way?

[00:02:46]You can watch how it learns and you learn and naturally have to understand what the system level thinking is doing.

[00:02:51]>> Mackenzie is a giant consulting firm.

[00:02:54]Giant. Yeah.

[00:02:54]>> Well, how are you using AI?

[00:02:57]>> Yeah. So, if if I think about what we're doing at a firm right now, and and I think this is the most exciting time. I tell all of our new hires, I wish I was in their shoes today because frankly coming into the world today, this is the most transformative moment our generation will ever have a chance to lead through. And what we do each and every day is we help our clients transform, right? And so they get to participate in the in the greatest effort. When we think about the work we're going to do, it does change, right? start with we are helping our clients reimagine what their business looks like and take them on a three, five, seven, 10 year journey that includes how do I think about the workflows that exist today in a world where I have both human and agents. How do I think about the reskilling of my people? How do I think about people that maybe I don't need over here but I now need over here and and which ones are more funible and which ones are not.

[00:03:46]This is a massive transition. So, we're working on that. The second thing we're doing is all the work we've always done, we can now do very differently. And so we are going systematically through every one of the things that we've always done that are still valuable and saying how do we do it with AI? And then we too have to rescale our base. And so we have massive efforts to go on right now to increase AI fluency.

[00:04:05]>> Chopping staff.

[00:04:06]>> No. Uh we're growing the number of consultants and we are being very thoughtful about what are the roles that as we go forward. Frankly, I'll be honest. There have been people that have come and said we should cut X, Y, or Z.

[00:04:19]And I actually don't think that's the right answer for the most part. That doesn't mean there won't be job changes, and there may even be some job losses.

[00:04:24]But this is not an AIdriven, right? I actually think AI will be making people superhuman and make them more effective at their jobs.

[00:04:31]>> You need youngsters who are AI.

[00:04:32]>> We do. And the good news is we get a lot of them.

[00:04:34]>> That's good news indeed. Thanks very much for joining us, sir. We appreciate it.

[00:04:37]>> Thanks for having us.