I had to LOL today when I read Spend Matters\u2019 interview with ISM\u2019s chief content and engagement officer, M.L. Peck.\u00a0\u00a0One excerpt of the interview stood out to me because it ventured into the topic of the \u201csupply chain talent crunch.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this excerpt, Spend Matters\u2019 wrote \u201cWe always hear about the\u00a0mass exodus of supply chain professionals\u00a0that\u2019s going to come when the Baby Boomer generation retires. But at the same time, more universities are establishing\u00a0supply chain programs, which are also becoming more popular. What is your take on the talent gap? Is it as bad as people say?\u201d<\/p>\n
Peck responded by saying, \u201cI do think the talent gap is substantial. We\u2019re now at the point where within the next five years or so, 75% of baby boomers are going to retire and Generation X wasn\u2019t big enough to fill all of those seats.\u201d<\/p>\n
This sounded eerily familiar to me.<\/p>\n
So, I went back to the NLPA blog and found a post entitled \u201cThe Purchasing Talent Crunch Paradox\u201d from July 27, 2007.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a typo in the year.\u00a0 It is actually from 2007, not 2017.<\/p>\n
In the comments to that post, fellow blogger Michael Lamoureux and I had an interesting exchange.\u00a0 Lamoureux wrote \u201cWhen you consider the fact that 76M baby boomers in the US will soon be eligible for retirement \u2013 over 25% of the US population and over 35% of the US workforce \u2013 the talent crunch is only going to get worse. Much worse!\u00a0 And it\u2019s going to happen on a global basis as well, since 25% of the world\u2019s population will reach retirement age in the next 3 years!\u201d<\/p>\n
I responded by writing \u201cI think that one distinction that deserves to be made is the difference between \u2018eligible for retirement\u2019 and \u2018planning to retire.\u2019\u00a0<\/strong> While many baby boomer purchasing folks are eligible to retire, many will continue to work.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0I still think that the talent crunch is not destined to get worse. It can get worse. But it doesn\u2019t have to.\u00a0\u00a0There are so many tactical purchasers out there who can step up and really make a career for themselves. There are more university purchasing programs than there were when the baby boomers started their careers.<\/strong> The image of purchasing has been elevated in recent years.\u00a0\u00a0All of these things can prevent the \u2018sky from falling.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0The wild card is for the tactical purchasers to see both the threat to their \u2018as-is jobs\u2019 as well as the opportunity to have a tremendously successful career by transforming their capabilities to qualify for the strategic ones.\u201d<\/p>\n Interesting, eh?<\/p>\n So, if Spend Matters and ISM are talking about the \u201csupply chain talent crunch\u201d and Baby Boomer retirement ten-plus years after visionaries like Michael Lamoureux and I debated it, it shows that the sky wasn\u2019t falling after all, then.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not falling now.\u00a0 You may worry based on pieces like my blog post from last week, but the economy has always been cyclical.\u00a0 Once it reaches a boiling point, the pendulum swings and things go in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n Consider these things.\u00a0 In this month\u2019s article of mine entitled \u201cProcurement Challenges In A Hot Economy,\u201d I cited some statistics:\u00a0 a US unemployment rate of 4.2% that was the lowest since February 2001 and a historically high Dow Jones Industrial Average of 23,000.<\/p>\n Well, what happened immediately after February 2001?<\/p>\n The unemployment rate\u00a0rose the next month.\u00a0 And the month after that.\u00a0 In a year, it was at 5.7%.\u00a0 In 27 months, it rose to 6.3% before declining again.\u00a0 It went as low as 4.4% in May 2007 \u2013 around the same time as the blog post I\u2019ve cited above.\u00a0 Then, it rose to a whopping 10% in October 2009 before a SLOOOOOW recovery brought it to where it is today, eight years later.<\/p>\n Did the stock market follow suit?<\/p>\n You bet it did!<\/p>\n In February 2001, the Dow stood at\u00a010,495.28.\u00a0 In a year, it fell to 10,106.13.\u00a0 By the time\u00a0the unemployment rate peaked at 6.3%, it declined to a pathetic 8850.26.\u00a0 Like the unemployment rate, it improved over the next few years,\u00a0blowing past the\u00a013,000 mark around the time of the aforementioned blog post.\u00a0 Then, it slumped to around 7,000 when unemployment reached its zenith.<\/p>\n So, is an economic correction imminent?<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t bet against it.<\/p>\n And that supply chain talent crunch?<\/p>\n It may worry\u00a0latecomers like ISM and its exec.<\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t worried about the supply chain talent crunch in 2007 and time has proven me right.<\/p>\n And I\u2019m not worried now.<\/p>\n Recommended Reading:<\/b><\/p>\n A Negotiation Checklist<\/a> I had to LOL today when I read Spend Matters\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n
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