Council Senior Fellow Amy Kaslow Discusses Job Creation in Harvard Business Review Blog

This election year, we'll all get rich if we earn a nickel each time a presidential hopeful vilifies culprits for costing jobs: "inept" government, "greedy" corporations, and "disruptive" unions top the list. And different audiences dictate just what the campaigners promote as the panacea for job growth: higher taxes, lower taxes, deregulation, more regulation, job training — all are constant refrains.

What's the reality beyond the rhetoric? First, let's make sure we're focused on the two biggest pressures on joblessness and job generation: the would-be new entrants — the 16- to 24-year-olds — lacking the necessary skills and experience to land gainful employment, and the post-55-year-old mature workers, intent on remaining in the labor market, or scrambling to get back in.

Statistics tell the story. Grey labor is the single largest cohort of the labor force and growing exponentially. It will make up 90% of the increase in the labor market between 2008 and 2018, with significant numbers of older Americans spurred by the need for supplemental income, given the bleak financial future they face in retirement. And recent college grads are saddled with much more than their own remedial needs. Students today borrow twice what they did only a decade ago, after adjusting for inflation. They need paychecks and promising futures.

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