Lifelong Learning and Underemployment in the Knowledge Society: A North American perspective

Abstract

The knowledge society is alive and well with adults engaged in unprecedented high levels of formal schooling, continuing education courses and informal learning. The 'knowledge economy', however, is still illusory. There is serious underemployment of people's learning capacities in current workplaces. This underemployment has several dimensions: the talent use gap; structural underemployment; involuntary reduced employment; the credential gap; the performance gap; and subjective underemployment. This article documents both extensive lifelong learning and massive underemployment in Canada and the USA. I suggest that this gap can be adequately addressed not by still more emphasis on lifelong learning, but rather by substantial economic reforms.