Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW: 21ST CENTURY GLOBAL WORKFORCE SKILLS

Literature Review: 21st Century Global Workforce Skills

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Introduction

The 21st Century globalization has triggered a significant transformation in the world's

economy. Globalization refers to the increased interconnection of people and nations across the

globe through the convergence of economic, cultural and political activities. Technological

development such as the growth of the internet has increased the speed of transformation of the

21st Century globalized workplaces and markets. The rapid internet and technology variation,

strong market dynamics, and increased global competition have created new challenges for

employers and employees. Notably, the employers and employees have to adapt to the rapid

changes taking place in the globalized economies to overcome the market competition variation.

Moreover, the global educational systems have also been designed to help in addressing

the demands of the 21st Century globalized economy. However, growing evidence indicates a

mismatch between the skills possessed by the 21st Century United States workforce and skills

demand by the country’s globalized workplace. A survey conducted in 2011 on 2,000 companies

based in the United States depicted that two-thirds of these companies experienced challenges

finding qualifies individuals to occupy the open vacancies. 30 percent of these companies took

approximately six months to fill their vacancies. Additionally, a survey conducted in 2006 on

431 employers located in the United States to determine their perceived readiness level for entry-

level jobs indicated a deficiency in the high-school, college and university grades used in

determination for job qualifications. Consistent with the above-mentioned findings, a report

released in 2012 indicated that despite the unemployment level of over 12 million people in the

United States, 3.7 jobs were still vacant in this year because of the skills mismatch. Research

shows that the 21st Century global workforce skills demand can be addressed through the design

of an appropriate education and training system.

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The Changing Economy

Numerous researches have been conducted to enhance the understanding of the breadth

of changes occurring in the global economy. An analysis of longitudinal data collected between

1967 and 1997 indicated that the United States economy changes from a predominately material

one to a predominantly information within this period. This analysis indicated that 54 percent of

the United States gross national product (GNP) in 1967 originated from the material products or

services production including construction and automobile while the remaining 46 percent

originated from the information technology products or services including telecommunication

and computers. According to the analysis, the economic structure of the United States has

changed where the material production or services accounted for 37 percent of the U.S. GNP

while the information products or services accounted for 63 percent of the nation’s GNP

(Dicken, 2003).

Research also shows that economic changes within the second half of the 20th Century

transformed the United States workplace significantly. Research shows that in the 1950s, the

United States workplace comprised of 20 percent professionals, 20 percent skilled

nonprofessionals and 60 percent unskilled individuals. However, a workplace analysis conducted

in 1997 indicated that the United States workforce had changed significantly between the 1950s

and 1990s. According to this research, the United States workforce of the 1990s comprised of 20

percent professionals, 60 percent skilled nonprofessionals and 20 percent unskilled individuals.

The significant transformation of the labor market composition within the second half of the 20th

Century signaled the dramatic shift in the United States workforce and the economy in the

subsequent years.
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The rise in the popularity of the computer and internet technology in the workplace also

placed the new emphasis on the workforce skills required as the globalization trend entered the

21st Century. Employers, for example, realized that the employees’ abilities to use the computer

and the internet enabled them to conduct routine tasks efficiency. It was evident for the

employers that the shift of global market from a manufacturing and service-based one to

information and service-based one coupled with the technological integration with the workplace

systems required corresponding changes in the skills required of the workforce. However, the

skills transformation at the workplace did not occur at the same pace with the education systems

transformation hence creating skills gap. The skills gap as the globalization trend entered the

21st Century was further worsened by the inability of the employers to effectively train their

workforce for the workforce skills demand for the globalized business world.

Changing Skill Requirement for the 21st Century Jobs

Employers across the globe are aware of the increasing demand for skilled workers in a

globalized world. Research has shown that 56 percent of the establishments in the United States

acknowledge the abilities workforce restructuring and adoption to new technologies to raise the

level of skills demand non-managerial employees. Research has shown that employers in the

United States have increasingly sought workers having basic skills, technical skills,

organizational skills, and company-specific skills. These skills are described in the table below:
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Skills Variety Description

Basic skills Basic skills include the academic basics including reading writing and

computation. The basic skills are required in all kinds of the job market.

The reading skills are relevant in the 21st Century workplace since

employees have to work with information records on manuals,

instructions, charts, forms, and computer terminals (Casner-Lotto &

Barrington, 2006). Computation skills are required in the data

organization, analysis and solving of mathematical problems. Writing

essentially helps in communication at the workplace level hence

facilitating implementation of strategies such as teamwork.

Technical skills Computer skills act as the baseline requirements for numerous jobs in the

globalized job market. Employers require their workforce to have

knowledge of the utilization of advanced manufacturing,

telecommunication and information technologies to overcome the intense

competition in the globalized market. The wide array of technologies in

the workplace boosts production and service delivery efficiency to

maximize profitability for businesses. Technologies have improved in the

21st Century hence increasing the quality of output and consumer

satisfaction. Moreover, the rapid evolvement of technologies in the 21st

Century expects employees to frequently upgrade their skills to ensure

their relevance in the globalized job market.

Organizational The emergence of the new organization and management systems in a

skills globalized job market expects employees to possess organizational skills

in addition to technical and academic skills. The organizational skills

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employees are supposed to possess to stay relevant in the 21st Century

globalized job market includes self-management, creative thinking,

problem-solving, analytical skills, interpersonal skills, and

communication skills. The necessity for the skills mentioned above is

created by the increased involvement of non-managerial workforce in

solving problems related to their organizations.

Company Market changes, competition variation and the emergence of new

Specific Skills technologies in a globalized world have forced organizations to pursue

innovation, continuous upgrade of work processes and constant

improvement of their goods and services. Notably, workers are required

to frequently learn new skills of particular relevance to their

organization’s production processes and outputs.

Table 1: Variety of Skills Sought by Employees in the 21st Century

The significant advancement in technology in the globalized job market of the 21st

Century has allowed organizations to integrate advanced technologies such as advanced

materials and automation with the production processes and service delivery. The growth of

internet technology has taken marketing to another level as evidenced by the emergence and

proved the effectiveness of social media marketing strategies. Notably, employees who were

unable to adopt social media marketing strategy as stuck on the conventional marketing

platforms such as newspapers, television, and radios lost in a competitive battle with those who

merged social media advertisement strategies with conventional advertisement strategies.

Advanced workplace management and organization skills have replaced conventional

strategies such as repetitive jobs with minimum worker discretion, chain-of-command-based

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communication, and hierarchical organization. Workplace decentralization and the adoption of

teamwork have eliminated rigid organizations. The success of the organizations in the 21st

Century is based on their employees’ abilities to realize, comprehend and adopt the new

workplace and organizational techniques. The table below illustrates the numerous differences

between the conventional and the new system of workplace management and organization:

Element Conventional System New System

Workplace organization  Hierarchical  Flexible

 Rigid  Cross-functional

 Specialized/functionalized  Team-work based

 Flat

Job design  An employee allocated a  Employees allocated

single job multiple

 Narrow responsibilities

 Repetitive  Broad

 Exposure to different

tasks regularly

Employee skills  Specialized  Cross/multi-skilled

Workforce management  Control/command  Self-management

systems

Communications  Need to know  Big picture painted

 Top down communication  Widely diffused

strategy communication
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strategy

Decision-making  Chain of Command  Decentralized

responsibility

Direction  Fixed/standardized  Constantly changing

operating procedures operating procedures

Worker autonomy  Low  High

Employee knowledge of  Narrow  Broad

organization

Table 2: Differences between the Conventional and the New System of Workplace Management

and Organization

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Moreover, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills considers three types of types of skills

to be necessary for the success of employees in the competitive and challenging globalized job

market. The three skills include cognitive skills, literacy skills, and life skills. The Partnership for

21st Century Skills considers cognitive skills to be the most important of the three types of skills.

Cognitive skills are further subdivided into critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, and

communication. Firstly, while creativity was conventionally associated with artistic endeavors

such as music and art, the notion of creativity has changed following its association with the

globalization trends. Creativity, from the perspective of workforce skills, has been shown to play

an integral role in a wide variety of skills including mathematics, design thinking,

entrepreneurship, and scientific thinking. A study conducted by IBM in 2010 on a sample

population of approximately 15,000 CEOs from 33 industries located in 60 countries indicated

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that creativity was regarded as a leadership quality of most importance in addressing problems of

increasing market uncertainty and complexity in a globalized world (Stuart & Dahm, 1999).

Demand for creativity in the job market has forced countries to reformulate their

education curriculum around this skill. In 2008, high schools in Great Britain were reformed to

incorporate the aspect of creativity and innovation. In 2008, the European Union developed a

program called the European Year of Creativity and Innovation to sensitize of problem-based

teaching and learning curricula. The problem-based teaching and learning curricula effectively

nurture creativity in individuals, which promotes their career growth once they venture into the

job market (Dede, 2010). China and Japan have also replaced their traditional teaching and

learning curricula with the problem-based approach to address the issue of creativity deficiency.

Dominant research models show that creativity is supported by divergent thinking capabilities

including originality, flexibility, fluency, and productivity.

Secondly, the National Council for excellence defines critical thinking as a disciplined

intellectual process of skillful and active conceptualization, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and

application of information generated or gathered through experience, reflection, communication,

observation or reasoning, as a guide to action or belief. Critical thinking entails an in-depth focus

on the existing principles and ideas instead of giving them a shallow focus. Critical thinking is

also a crucial component of the problem-based teaching and learning strategy. Critical thinking

education varies from an explicit curriculum that guides students in identification and practice of

higher order thinking to content-based education that entails information interpretation,

discerning of patterns, analysis of concepts, and evaluation of evidence. Teaching and learning

that integrates critical thinking skills prepare the students for the demanding 21st Century

globalized job market (P21, 2018).

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Thirdly, communication ability is regarded as the core factor of professional success in

the 21st Century globalized job market. Good communication skills promote comprehension of

concepts in school and at the workplaces. Communication also fosters collaboration; an

important aspect of the 21st Century workplace. According to the scholars, good communication

skills promote multicultural learning and self-expression. Fourth, collaboration is regarded as the

best strategy for solving the complex problems of the globalized world. Collaboration promotes

the pooling of ideas and skills through the unification of different agencies and individuals on

common goals. The collaboration strategy has been observed to promote high-quality decisions

and solve problems quickly. Time consciousness and quality assurance are important

organizational attributes in overcoming the intense competition in the globalized market of the

21st Century.

Literacy skills involve the individuals’ recognition of various ideas to ensure their

success in the workplaces. It also involves the ability to use information in solving problems and

making decisions. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills further classifies literacy skills into

media literacy, technology literacy, and information literacy. Literacy skills hence enable

employees in the 21st Century job market to learn and implement emerging technologies

quickly, marketing and production ideas to ensure their relevance, protect their jobs and careers

and help their employers accomplish their objectives (Pearce, 2014).

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills describes life skills as the individual's abilities to

take initiatives, create career visions and goals, and develop their personal brand. The life skill

teaching has also been integrated with curriculums of many countries across the globe to prepare

students for the globalized job market. The life skills that promote employees’ success in the 21st
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Century globalized job market includes flexibility, initiative, leadership, social skills, and

productivity.

Changing Skill Requirement for Emerging Jobs

Emerging jobs require additional education and training of the employees to ensure their

growth. In the 21st Century, most emerging jobs are majorly concentrated in the technology-

related sectors of the global economy. Trends in technology and businesses have created a

competition in the job market based on the acquisition of additional knowledge and training.

Additional education and training hence prepare unemployed individuals for new jobs in the

globalized economy. Moreover, the skills growth has been connected with education

achievements to prevent the negligence of formal education. Jobs requiring high skills have also

experienced fast employment growth. The fastest growing jobs have also created a huge demand

for a high level of education and training.

Employers and Employees Benefits from Investments in Education and Training

Investments in education and training in the global workforce have yielded significant

benefits for employees and investors. Investments in education and training have facilitated the

generation of high-performance workplaces because of the emphasis on flexibility and

autonomy. Employees who possess advanced skills in the globalized job market have a

competitive advantage and stand a higher chance of receiving better salaries than their

counterparts with a lower skills-base. Skilled employees also get additional benefits such as

greater job security. Employees who possess a high level of skills and education get absorbed in

new jobs faster than their counterparts with lower skill- and education-bases. On the other hand,
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employers who are able to promote, hire and recruit a highly skilled workforce to increase their

competitiveness and productivity. This means that education and training creates a positive

benefits cycle for both employees and their employers.

Overcoming the challenges of a Globalized Economy

The new economy characterized by the globalization trend portrays education and

training as an important investment for overcoming challenges for both the employers and the

employees. Despite the benefits of workforce development being clear, some employers and

employees in the 21st Century global workforce have failed to adopt training and development

strategies due to various reasons. Firstly, some organizations have feared that education and

training could create high workforce turnover. Although this is not a problem for organizations

offering skills for specific tasks, employees having transferable skills may be lost to other firms.

Possibilities of the loss of employees with transferable skills make workforce training appear like

a poor investment strategy for the employers (National Research Council, 2013). Secondly,

smaller businesses have been limited by their low capital bases in adopting workforce

development strategies. Moreover, limited capital bases cripple the training programs in small

firms because of the inadequacy of information about potential market benefits.

Some employees in the 21st Century have been unable to acquire additional skills due to

numerous factors. Firstly, these employees generally lack access to information for boosting their

skills. Secondly, these employees are unable to gain information from a single source hence

making the training process poor. Thirdly, some employees are unable to pay for the additional

training and education programs because of limited financial backgrounds. Other factors
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hindering the education and training of employees in the 21st Century includes ethnic and racial

barriers.

However, the challenges presented by the 21st globalization make education and training

strategy of workforce development inevitable for both employers and the employees. Notably,

the employees are aware that inability or reluctance to pursue training and development could

lead to loss of their relevance and job insecurity. It could also make promotion impossible where

sticking with obsolete technologies would make the employees lose their jobs to highly skilled

competitors. Lack of relevant skills could also lead to low salaries and inabilities to get new jobs.

On the other hand, employers are aware that the inability to develop the skills of their workforce

would reduce their productivity and market relevance. Research has shown that companies that

have been unable to invest in workforce development have been unable to adopt new

technologies and innovations. Inabilities to adopt new technologies have led to inabilities of the

firms to overcome competition, which has finally led to their collapse. Nokia and Yahoo are

reputable multinational that have succumbed to the globalization market pressure because of

their low innovation capabilities (Trilling & Fadel, 2012). Moreover, where education and

training motivate the employees, failure to offer these opportunities may make firms to lose

reliable employees to their competitors. The competitive nature of the 21st Century globalized

economy makes employees retention as a crucial competitive strategy for firms across the globe.

Workforce education and training services are offered by numerous providers in the 21st

Century. However, employers are the most common providers of workforce education and

training. The effectiveness of the employers’ workforce development programs is due to their

first-hand knowledge of the specific skills required by their employees in executing their
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responsibilities. Other providers of employees training include the educational institutions, labor

unions, and the governments.

Providers of Workforce Education and Training

Educational Institutions

Educational institutions across the globe in the 21st Century have been designed to

accommodate adult learners. Most of the adult learners in educational institutions are working

class individuals in various societies across the globe. Most employees pursue education and

training from community colleagues because of their convenient location, broad accessibility,

and flexibility of schedules. Most institutions of higher learning across the globe have adopted

part-time teaching and learning programs for working individuals (Bybee & Fuchs, 2006).

Employees have also benefitted from the distance learning services offered by institutions

in the 21st Century. The distance learning programs allow people to access education services

over the internet. The distance learning in the 21st Century has been supported by individuals’

increased accessibility to the internet and technological gadgets such as tablets, computers, and

smartphones.

Employers

The employers consider that institutions only offer basic education and skills for their

workforce. They also consider that provision and acquisition of skills should not be limited to the

environments of educational institutions. Researches have shown that industries and businesses

offer approximately half of the education and training related to workforce development.
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Moreover, employer-based training has increased tremendously in the 21st century. Employers

in the 21st Century spend approximately $30-$40 billion each year in workforce training.

Corporations including Federal Express, IBM, Motorola, Apple, and Google spend

approximately 5 percent of their payroll on workforce training. 53 percent of United States

manufactures spend approximately 1 percent of their payroll in workforce education and

training.

Labor Unions

Labor unions have played a crucial role in workforce development since their inception.

Labor unions prioritize workforce education and training through the provision of a bargaining

table for employees’ rights and sensitization on the importance of comprehensive public systems.

Labor unions have partnered with government agencies and employers in funding of various

forms of workforce development. Every nation across the globe currently has active labor unions

that monitor and controls the workforce training to meet the global workforce skills expectations.

Government Agencies

Governments have invested a substantial amount of funds in employees training and

development. The government mainly fund educational and training in its learning institutions.

The governments have also integrated innovative learning strategies with their curriculum to

facilitate the employees training, for example, part-time learning. The governments have

invested in workforce development to promote competitiveness at the international level in terms

of economic power. A government with a highly skilled workforce can export its workforce to
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any destination across the globe because of the globalization hence earning foreign exchange

benefits.

Conclusion

The globalized economy of the 21st Century is characterized by rapid internet and

technology variation, strong market dynamics, and increased global competition at the individual

and organizational level. Globalization has induced persistence changes in skills requirement for

the 21st Century job market. The changing skills requirement by the 21st Century job market

exists as a challenge for both the employers and the employees. It is evident that workforce

training and development is an inevitable strategy for both employers and employees. Employers

conduct workforce education and training to increase their productivity, motivate their

employees and maintain their competitiveness. Employees’ additional training and education to

boost their skills to overcome competition, gain promotion, gain pay rise and earn job security.

The important skills gained through training and development to match the expectation of the

21st Century Global Workforce skills demand includes cognitive skills, literacy skills, and life

skills. However, workforce development training is based on the understanding of the existence

of various skills including basic skills, technical skills, organizational skills, and company

specific skills.
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References

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science and technology education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching: The Official

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Dede, C. (2010). Comparing frameworks for 21st century skills. 21st century skills: Rethinking

how students learn, 20, 51-76.

Dicken, P. (2003). Global shift: Reshaping the global economic map in the 21st century.

Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Casner-Lotto, J., & Barrington, L. (2006). Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers'

Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st

Century US Workforce. Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 1 Massachusetts Avenue NW

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National Research Council. (2013). Education for life and work: Developing transferable

knowledge and skills in the 21st century. National Academies Press.

P21. (2018). Framework for 21st Century Learning. Partnership for 21st Century Learning.

Pearce, K. (2014). The 21st Century Skills You Need for Today's Job Market. Diy Genius.

Stuart, L., & Dahm, E. (1999). 21st Century skills for 21st century jobs. Federal Publications,

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Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2012). 21st Century skills: Learning for life in our times. Hoboken:

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