Jul 14, 2026
Young Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the job market as many college grads struggle to find work. But other fields have the exact opposite issue: they’re facing a shortage of skilled, interested workers.
“We have a crisis in front of us in not preparing people for the world that’s coming,” said former Tennessee governor Bill Haslam at an event for the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he talked about the need for a national talent strategy.
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Retirements in key fields, such as healthcare, have left skill vacuums that new talent hasn’t been able to fill. A report by Georgetown University predicted there would be an approximately 4.6-million-person gap between people retiring and new skilled workers entering the labor market between 2024 and 2032.
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The report predicts that nearly 171 occupations will face labor shortages by 2032.
Here’s what to know about the labor shortage: Why it’s appearing and what fields are currently the most affected.
Immigrants and potential college students are being squeezed out of fields that desperately need them
Part of the labor shortage is caused by the United States’ policy of increased hostility toward immigrants, who have historically helped bridge labor gaps in the country.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that, in 2025, almost 20% of people in the civilian labor force were foreign-born, a category that includes naturalized citizens, permanent and temporary residents, refugees, and undocumented immigrants. But for the first time in 50 years, more immigrants are leaving the U.S. than entering it, according to Pew.
Immigrants also helped shore up the declining birthrate in the U.S., which isn’t high enough to maintain the U.S. population. For example, 30 U.S. states have more high school seniors enrolled in schools than first grade students.
Having children is increasingly expensive, thanks to the rising cost of childcare. Not only is this keeping people from having children, but almost 80% of women who left the workforce in 2021 cited home and family care as the reason they were leaving.
New grads are also outnumbered by older workers with bachelor’s degrees. In addition to demographics, that could be because the cost of college is climbing, while Americans’ perceptions of the importance of college has dropped.
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Health services and trade jobs are heavily affected by the labor shortage
The health services field has been strong in a labor market marked by AI-led contractions. Perhaps too strong — the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis estimates that there will be millions of job shortages across many different health fields by 2038.
Perhaps most notably, it predicts that there will be over 350,000 unfilled nursing positions by 2038. It also predicts wide shortages for behavioral health and primary care providers.
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Like other fields, this shortage is partially driven by experts retiring out of their roles. But these retirees also represent an aging population with people who will naturally need more access to healthcare as they get older.
Nursing shortages could also be due to tough working environments burning nurses out of the field before they get a chance to retire.
Trade jobs are also in high demand — so much so that Meta is offering pay and a guaranteed job to people willing to pursue a vocational program. Trade jobs are actively profiting off of the AI boom thanks to the push for more data centers, although these jobs are necessarily temporary.
While trades workers are also retiring out of the field at high rates, younger people could be hesitant to go into technical fields thanks to perceived stigma.
The government is also getting in on providing incentives to trades workers. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made it possible for people in short-term vocational programs to be eligible for a Pell Grant.
Other fields, such as agriculture, manufacturing, and some technology fields, are also likely to see job shortages in the near future.
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Kit Pulliam is a DC-based financial journalist with over five years of experience writing, editing, and fact-checking financial content.
