This Economist Foresees 15 Years of Labor Shortages

Economists who worry about high unemployment are a dime a dozen, or 0.83¢ each, as they will point out. It’s less common to find an economist predicting an era of chronic labor shortages, with employers struggling to fill openings. One who does see things that way is Gad Levanon, the Israeli-born director of macroeconomic research at the Conference Board, a business research group founded in 1916.

I sat down with Levanon this week to ask him to explain why he’s swimming against the tide on the topic of labor. Here’s what he said: