The single most influential factor in the supply chain, transportation and logistics job market in 2012, and for the next 10 years is the aging population of the overwhelmingly white male work force.
We will see a substantial drop in unemployment statistics as we move to the middle of election year 2012, probably to something below 8.5 percent. Democrats will tout President Obama’s jobs plan as paying dividends. What we’ll really see is Baby Boomer-era workers, many of them unemployed, disappearing from the statistics as they move onto the retirement rolls. People born between 1946 and 1964 make up 25.8 percent of the population, or 79.2 million people, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The age most people choose to accept Social Security benefits is 62. So we’ll have millions of people born between 1946 and 1950 leave the job market and start collecting their entitlements.
This is all great news for the Gen X and Gen Y who will enjoy opportunities that have unavailable to them.
Many women who graduated college during the late 1980s and early 90s and found opportunities in what was then a typically male-dominated supply chain management and logistics community now are stepping into executive and C-level roles being vacated by retiring boomers. As a result, we also are seeing a gender evolution as well as the transition to a younger more mobile talent pool.
Logistics, SCM and transportation managers and executives are extremely mobile given the nature of their work. Relocation for a career opportunity is an accepted part of the growth process. Domestic relocation at the manager and executive level will erode salary disparities due to geographic factors and as jobs become extremely specialized and job descriptions become more generic from company to company compensation ranges will be assigned to the roles much more efficiently and fairly.
The competition for those with the precise experience sought will be fierce.