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With unemployment at a historic low, companies are coming up with creative ways to hire fast and at scale. But, as Udemy’s 2018 Skills Gap Report found, companies will see diminishing returns if they don’t invest in their workforce’s ongoing learning and development. 

Ask a group of students when they first used their school’s career services office, and you may hear that they stopped in sometime during their final semester. They may even say they made use of those services only during their last month. Even worse, many -- perhaps nearly half -- would say they never visited the office at all. It’s a worrying response that’s having an impact on students’ lives after graduation.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that by 2020, there will be 1 million more computing jobs than workers to fill them. Demand for jobs in data science alone has grown 300 percent over the last four years. Tech skills like cloud computing and user interface design top the list of the most in-demand skills.  It’s a challenge that stems, in part, from the well-documented divide between higher education and the world of work. And the challenge is only accelerating as the shelf life of skills shrinks. 

Addressing our country’s workforce development challenges is no longer a big business problem. In fact, small businesses may yet deliver the most innovative and important solutions for creating real pathways to opportunity in today’s economy.