The U.S. needs 230,000 more people with marketing skills

Companies, large and small, need marketing to grow. Small businesses may not have resources for a full-time marketing hire, but they still need these skills—which range from social media and digital marketing, to market research and branding.

Given how critical marketing skills are across sectors, we were surprised to find that the U.S. has a national shortage of 230,000 people with marketing skills. The San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and even New York City—the center of the advertising universe—have the greatest shortages of people with these skills. But smaller cities like Nashville, Charlotte and Tucson also have a shortage.

So where are all the marketers? The cities with the biggest surpluses are Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, St. Louis, Las Vegas, and Orange County. Other cities with intense surpluses relative to their population size include Daytona Beach, Sarasota; Lakeland; and Saginaw. So if you’re trying to hire a marketer to grow your business, these might be a great place to find someone with the skills you need.

Skills gaps like these are fundamentally local, and specific to the supply and demand of individual skills. There is an abundance, or surplus, of skills when supply exceeds demand. There is a scarcity, or shortage, of skills when demand exceeds supply. A city with a scarcity of skills needs more people with certain skills, while a city with an abundance of skills has too many people with certain skills.

Skills gaps can be narrowed by people moving to cities where their skills are in demand; by businesses opening up shop in cities where there’s an abundance of the skills they need; by training people to learn the skills that are in demand from employers; and by employers offering higher pay for in-demand skills. In order to narrow skills gaps, cities should seek to understand the dynamics of their own labor markets and create policies to align education and training with employer needs.

The U.S. cities with the largest skills gaps overall are the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, D.C., and Austin. Each of these cities has a scarcity-driven skills gap, which means there is a high unfilled demand for workers with certain skill sets such as healthcare management, or education and teaching. To see which other skills are in scarcity, check out the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, D.C., and Austin City Reports.