By Ken Stern, Chair, The Longevity Project
As Americans live and work longer and have more varied careers, the need for lifelong learning has become increasingly clear. This is one of the key takeaways of the new Longevity Project – Morning Consult poll, released on November 14. Traditionally, the completion of high school or college has signaled the end of the educational phase of life, but that stark end to the formal learning cycle is now increasingly outdated for most workers. In our poll, 57% overall and 74% of those age 18-29 stated that they anticipate exploring new career opportunities and would accordingly need new educational and vocational training in the future.
Where will people find these new educational opportunities? Increasingly, Americans are expecting to receive these opportunities from their employers rather than from traditional educational institutions. 33% of all respondents identified their current or future employers as the most likely source of on-going education, a percentage that outstripped traditional education organizations, government programs and similar educational and vocational offerings.
The results of the Longevity Project – Morning Consult poll are broadly consistent with other recent surveys. A September 2019 poll from Gallup and the Strada Education Network found that a little less than half of all Americans (46%) without a college degree believed that they would need additional educational opportunities to advance their careers. For this group of respondents, employers were the first source of educational opportunity, with 33% indicating that they would turn first to their employers for additional training and education, the exact number that we found in the Longevity Project – Morning Consult poll. Community colleges were a distant second at 23%, while trade schools (21%) and traditional four-year colleges (17%) were also seen as possible, though lesser, options.
The emergence of employers as educators of choice suggests a potential reordering of roles in an increasingly complicated education environment. Americans are working much longer -- workers 55+ are the only growing segment in the US labor force and, according to the Pew Research Center, 19.8% of Americans over the age of 65 are engaged in full-time or part-time work, a number that has steadily increased since at least 2000. The need for ongoing education, sometimes decades after the end of the education phase of life, is likely to only increase with the graying of the labor force. To a certain extent, American companies are responding, some by investing in college courses for employees (McDonald’s, Starbucks, Walmart, for example) and others by investing in internal training initiatives for employees. Companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of these programs to upskill, retain and attract employees in a competitive environment but it is unclear whether they are doing so at a scale sufficient to meet the very large existing and growing demands of the American worker. According to a survey from Instructure, conducted by the Harris Poll, 70% of employees say they would likely take an offer from a company known for employee learning and development – a number that climbs to about 80% for the key 25-44 demographic. These are astonishing numbers and they underline the centrality of ongoing learning to American workers – and are either a wake-up call or an invitation to American business to invest more substantially in the education of their current and future employees.
The Longevity Project, developed in collaboration with the Stanford Center on Longevity, is a new initiative to foster public conversation and knowledge about the implications of longevity for civil society and to promote new ideas to support successful longer lives. Collaborators and partners in the Longevity Project include the Stanford Center on Longevity, the Urban Institute, the National Academy of Medicine, Morning Consult, Instructure, Principal Financial Group and Wells Fargo.