Want to Close the Skills Gap? Bring Learning Closer to Work — from campustechnology.com by Elise Awwad

Key Takeaways

  • The skills gap is a workforce access problem as much as a talent problem: Employers broadly plan to upskill workers, yet many employees still lack sufficient time or access to AI training.
  • AI fluency compounds where workers already have access: Employees who use AI regularly build confidence and capability, while those whose jobs keep them farther from the technology risk falling further behind.
  • Upskilling works better when learning is integrated with work: Employers and higher education should create pathways that combine technical and durable skills with on-the-job application, rather than treating reskilling as an individual responsibility.

The skills employers say they cannot find are increasingly the skills they expect employees and candidates to arrive with, fully formed, at their own expense.
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Upskilling or reskilling is often framed as an individual responsibility: a matter of initiative, of staying current. But if employers need these skills, they have a stake in making sure workers have a realistic way to develop them.