Lightcast

WEBINAR — LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER. There are roughly 3 job openings in the skilled trades for every 1 person completing a relevant training program. Our Lightcast projections show that creates an estimated talent gap of 1.3 million workers in the US. This Tuesday Sept 22, Ron Hetrick Hannah Grieser and Matt Walsh will define the skilled trades, and help you develop strategies to deal with these prolific shortages we're primed to experience. Register now >>>> https://lnkd.in/e8BC6xWi

What is a Forward Deployed Engineer? It is one of the fastest-growing AI roles in the labor market, with demand rising from roughly 200 US job postings in 2024 -------> to 1,200 in 2025. Then more than 5,200 postings appeared in the first seven months of 2026 alone. The role combines: • AI and software expertise • Workflow design and scalability • Communication, problem solving, and leadership Forward Deployed Engineers bring technical capabilities directly to customer challenges, helping organizations apply AI in practical, measurable ways. Read our Elena Magrini's latest Q&A to learn how the role is evolving, which skills employers value most, and how it compares with Software Engineering. https://lnkd.in/e7p2sJVY

Your workforce strategy is only as good as the data behind it. How do you know if you can trust your work intelligence? Jobs are changing faster than the systems built to understand them, and AI is forcing employers to work at a much more granular level: occupations, tasks, and skills. When hundreds or thousands of employees—and millions of dollars of business—rest on a workforce strategy, the underlying data needs external validation, structure, and governance. That’s what Lightcast work intelligence delivers. Read more: https://lnkd.in/etmBpaEQ

🌍 There is no global labour market anymore One of the most overlooked messages in the latest World Employment Confederation's Labour Market Intelligence Insights is the sheer divergence between countries. What differs? 📍 Inflation (dramatically!) 📍 Growth trajectories 📍 Labour market dynamics (not least - thanks to Lightcast for the online job market insights!) 📍 Business confidence Yet many organisations continue to discuss talent strategy as if a single global narrative exists. But it doesn't. A workforce strategy that works in one market may be completely wrong in another. The implication is that benchmarking is becoming less and less reliable a tool. In essence, the question is no longer: "What is happening globally?" but rather "Which countries are entering a different labour market cycle altogether?" The era of global averages may be ending. The era of labour market segmentation has arrived. #GlobalWorkforce #LabourMarketIntelligence #TalentStrategy #HR

The robots aren’t coming to fix the skilled trades shortage. From electrical work and HVAC to construction and infrastructure, the US simply doesn’t have enough workers to meet the demand ahead. Our Principal Economist Ron Hetrick explains why rebuilding the skilled trades workforce needs a new level of urgency. Read our new report --- link in comments.

The need for alumni #CareerOutcomes data has never been more urgent. Students and families want stronger evidence of ROI. Institutions are under growing pressure to demonstrate graduate success. And new federal policies are placing even greater emphasis on measurable career outcomes. To help colleges and universities meet this moment, we've introduced two major enhancements to the Lightcast Alumni Pathways platform: 1) Global Profiles expands alumni outcomes coverage beyond the U.S., with visibility into graduate career success across 165 countries. 2) Alumni Pathways API gives institutions more flexible access to alumni outcomes data for integration into dashboards, embedding into program pages, or combining with other institutional data sources for customized reporting. Learn why outcomes data is becoming a strategic priority — and how we're continuing to innovate to help higher education stay ahead. https://lnkd.in/g7ChJrMx

45% of skilled-trade occupations use apprenticeships as a talent-development pathway. For Carpenters: 78%. Electricians: 74%. Plumbers: 67%. And skilled-trade apprenticeship completions have increased more than 70% since 2015. When employers need workers with applied skills and students want pathways that connect learning directly to earning, apprenticeship isn’t a side conversation. It’s workforce infrastructure. Explore the data and our recommendations for building the skilled-trades pipeline: https://lnkd.in/ehaiiVrZ

One of the fascinating things about going very granular with data is that you get to see things macro trends can't capture. Meet the Forward Deployed Engineer for example. This is one of the fastest growing tech jobs right now, with demand really taking off in the second half of 2025. The thing that fascinates me most though, is not the rapid growth, but rather how this job came about in the first place. The Forward Deployed Engineer has a significant overlap with the traditional Software Engineer. They both build software, and share roughly 50% of the underlying skills required for the job, but Forward Deployed Engineers go further, connecting software with customer applications. In other words, the Forward Deployed Engineer is one example of how the Software Engineer job may be evolving. Software Engineers are often discussed as one of the roles most exposed to AI, but the Forward Deployed Engineer shows that elimination is not the only path forward. The content of jobs can evolve too - in this case expanding and combining different capabilities. Some of the most interesting changes happening in the labour market right now are happening underneath the traditional 'job' as a unit of analysis. We need to go more granular to see them. https://lnkd.in/eACvjGip

The skilled trades have a talent problem. They also have an untapped talent pool hiding in plain sight. Men currently hold 90% of skilled-trade jobs. And in 6 of the 10 most in-demand skilled-trade occupations, men account for more than 95% of workers. At the same time, the US needs to fill 2.1 million skilled-trade openings every year, while education and training programs produce only about 800,000 annual completions. Bringing more women into the skilled trades represents a significant opportunity to expand the talent pipeline. Learn more about the impending shortages and explore strategies to build up this workforce: https://lnkd.in/ehaiiVrZ