Hidden Talent: Why Everyone's Wrong About AI and the Future of Work

Everyone's talking about AI taking jobs. But workforce expert Dr. David DeLong says the real crisis is the opposite: By 2030, we'll have 3 million more jobs than workers.

Dr. DeLong has been interviewed by NPR, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, and Bloomberg about workforce trends. He's the author of five books including "Hidden Talent" and has spent decades studying the interaction between people, technology, and work.
While headlines scream about AI automation, the data tells a different story: The US will have 12 million jobs and only 9 million workers to fill them (Congressional Budget Office). The question isn't "will AI take my job?" - it's "where will we find enough workers?"

Dr. DeLong reveals three massive talent pools employers are completely overlooking.

The AI reality check:
"Nobody knows what the impact of AI is going to be. What we do know from history is new types of jobs get created. Jobs will go away or change, but other new jobs will be created. Meanwhile, landscapers, construction workers, nurses, teachers - plenty of fields won't be replaced by machines. Those jobs must be filled by humans."

The overlooked talent pools:
🗣️ Refugees and immigrants (skilled workers ready to contribute)
🗣️ Formerly incarcerated (second chance hiring with proven results)
🗣️ People with disabilities (often requiring minimal accommodations)

Why the workforce is actually shrinking:

🗣️ Baby boomers retiring in massive numbers
🗣️ Declining fertility rates (fewer people entering workforce)
🗣️ Fewer working-age men participating in labor force
🗣️ Skills gap widening across industries


Resources:
Website: SmartWorkforceStrategies.com
Book: "Hidden Talent: How to Employ Refugees, the Formerly Incarcerated, and People with Disabilities"
Free Chapter: ReadHiddenTalent.com

CHAPTERS
[00:00] Introduction & Hosts Preview
[00:45] Meet Dr. David DeLong
[01:13] Technology, People, and the Changing Workforce
[01:38] The Declining Workforce Crisis
[02:36] Fewer Babies, Fewer Workers
[03:20] 3 Million Worker Shortage by 2030
[03:59] What About AI Taking Jobs?
[04:58] Why Focus on Overlooked Workers?
[06:39] Companies Hiring from These Talent Pools
[07:36] Success Stories: Walgreens and Disabilities
[09:27] How to Reach These Worker Groups
[10:05] Other Overlooked Populations
[10:55] How Workers Find the Right Companies
[11:46] Inspiring Story: Bajra's Journey
[13:48] Strategy, Not Charity
[14:38] Do You Tell Current Employees?
[15:42] Screening Formerly Incarcerated Workers
[16:44] One Message for Employers
[17:14] How to Learn More

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Transcript

00:02 - Stacey (Host)
Do you have a hidden talent, Mark? 

00:06 - Mark  (Host)
This is not the show for that. No, I have no hidden talent. None, I don't want you to go there. 

00:13 - Stacey (Host)
But today our guest, dr David DeLong, has written a book Hidden Talent. It talks about how to employ refugees, the formerly incarcerated and people with disabilities, which we need to do, according to Dr DeLong, right, because the workforce is shrinking and by 2030, there will be more jobs than there will be people to fill those jobs. That's the projection. So you need to know where you can find workers in these overlooked pools. 

00:40 - Mark  (Host)
Overlooked all the time right the formerly incarcerated all three. 

00:43 - Stacey (Host)
I'm excited to talk to Dr David DeLong. Hi, I'm Stacey. 

00:49 - Mark  (Host)
And I am Mark, and this is the Gurus of Game Changers podcast. 

00:56 - Stacey (Host)
Welcome to the show. It's great to be with you. David, it's just so nice to meet you, and you've written four very successful books, correct? Am I right with that? Is there more that I'm not actually. 

01:06 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
I knew it. 

01:07 - Stacey (Host)
Five successful books and you've been interviewed by, you know, npr, wall Street Journal, forbes, fortune, bloomberg and gurus and game changers. So what about you? And your message is so important well, I've been studying Stacy. 

01:24 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
I've been studying for more years than I want to count the interaction between people and technology, and I've always been interested in how technology changes the way people relate to each other and how they communicate and how they relate to their work. 

01:42 - Mark  (Host)
And you focus on these populations that we do have a declining workforce, right. 

01:49 - Stacey (Host)
Right. 

01:49 - Mark  (Host)
Because the boomers are all retiring. 

01:51 - Stacey (Host)
Yes, they're taking all this knowledge with them. 

01:53 - Mark  (Host)
Yes, and that leaves a hole. 

01:55 - Stacey (Host)
Right, he wrote a book about that, actually the Lost Knowledge book, right, right. 

01:59 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Right. My book Lost Knowledge, confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce dealt with the problem of retiring baby boomers and the fact that we have this globally. By the way, this is a problem in Italy, germany, spain, japan. Every major industrialized country is looking at a shrinking workforce. It's layered on top of the problem of the aging workers is the declining fertility rate. We're not having enough babies and so actually, to use the United States as an example we have today, since the Great Recession back in 08, 07, 08, the fertility rate has gone down dramatically. So the number of kids coming out of high school today is much smaller than it was 20 years ago. So we have fewer people coming into our workforce. 

02:47 - Stacey (Host)
I mean, I didn't realize that I've just been hearing a lot about that lately there's less babies. There are definitely fewer babies. 

02:53 - Mark  (Host)
You know what's interesting is, I heard I know we'll get off this topic in a second, but some occupations are looking at a serious deficit. I saw like veterinarians, like if you want to guarantee your future become a vet, because all of them are close to 50. They're all retiring. There isn't this new farm team coming up? 

03:11 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Yeah, the problem with vets is it's a fabulous field but it's very expensive to get trained in and it's considerably a long time and the money isn't that great. So it's a field that you think a lot of people have a heart for but don't. Economically it's hard to sustain In the future. 

03:31 - Stacey (Host)
You're saying really that there's going to be more jobs than there will be people to work in those jobs. Do I have that right? When would that happen? 

03:41 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Absolutely. The US government says the Congressional Budget Office predicts there's going to be a shortage of 3 million workers in the US by 2030, as we have 12 million jobs and 9 million people available to work them. 

04:01 - Mark  (Host)
Dave, that's the exact opposite of everything you hear right. Ai is coming, it's going to delete jobs and the joblessness is going to keep going up and up and up. It's the exact opposite. 

04:10 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
We don't know Nobody knows what the impact of AI is going to be on the job market. What we do know from history is that new types of jobs get created. So certainly a lot of jobs are going to go away or are going to be changed, but other new jobs are going to be created, and so there's huge uncertainty right now about what the future workplace is going to look like. That said, there are still jobs that have to be done. You know landscapers, construction, nursing. You know plenty of fields teaching that are not going to be replaced by machines and by AI, so those jobs must be filled by humans. 

04:50 - Stacey (Host)
So your new book is called Hidden Talent how to Employ Refugees, formerly Incarcerated and People with Disabilities. So what made you shift? Because I know in the past you were more about knowledge and about the workforce kind of diminishing as we get older. What made you shift to overlooked workers? 

05:09 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Last 20 years I've been speaking to executive audiences around the country, many different industries, about critical skill shortages, again because of the changing workforce aging, baby boomers leaving. Most of these CEOs are complaining to me, saying we can't find people, we can't find skilled people to fill these jobs, and they would even say we can't find people who will show up and pass a drug test. You know there just aren't out there. Six, eight years ago my wife went to work for a nonprofit here in Massachusetts that works with young adults coming out of prison and we saw firsthand the incredible challenges these young people face in trying to start a career. 

05:48
These folks are growing up very poor. They're usually second, often second generation immigrants. And I said to myself I said there've got to be companies that have cracked the nut of how to employ these marginalized workers, people with a criminal history, immigrants and also those who've been diagnosed with a disability. There've got to be companies that have figured out how to hire and use these folks in a totally positive way as good employees. So I'm a storyteller at heart and I really wanted to tell the story of companies and individuals who had overcome those challenges, but really the companies and what they had done to be successful, to encourage other managers and inspire a general audience to really think more positively about these groups that we tend to ignore when we're screaming about not having talent, not being able to hire people. But I'd say, look, these talent pools are there and there are some great employees in those groups. 

06:50 - Stacey (Host)
What's the percentage you think of companies who don't hire out of those pools of individuals? 

06:58 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
There are more companies that are hiring today, stacey hiring folks with disabilities. It's become pretty fashionable actually, for example, to hire people they call them high functioning autistics, people who have been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Microsoft, adobe, sap, ernst Young all these companies will proudly tell you about they have a pretty neurodiverse is the word that's used neurodiversity. They have a neurodiverse workforce. They are very open to folks who function at a high level but have been diagnosed with some element of autism. And also we're overlooking formerly incarcerated. A lot of companies now are talking about saying oh, we're felon friendly. That's a common phrase. Yeah, felon friendly. 

07:45 - Mark  (Host)
We are open to hiring people. 

07:47 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
They also call it second chance hiring. That's the term second chance hiring which is great and they say we're open to it. 

07:54 - Mark  (Host)
I think I understand the fear of compromised output, depending on the job, obviously depending on the job. So let's say there's a person in a wheelchair and Home Depot doesn't want to hire that person because they can't drag the stairs over and climb up and pull something down from the upper shelves in the stock. But you're saying well, there's plenty of other positions that they would be good for and great at for the long term. 

08:20 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Walgreens, the drugstore company, is a company that's done amazing work in hiring folks with disabilities, so what? 

08:27 - Stacey (Host)
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08:51 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Walgreens has figured out that we really don't have to make a lot of changes. They found the accommodations, that is, the changes that have to be made in order for a person to work there, to be really minor and cost like $25 or some crazy small number in order to create an environment that's safe. That safety is always number one, and productive Productivity numbers are just amazing what these folks will do. 

09:17 - Stacey (Host)
And productive Productivity numbers are just amazing what these folks will do. So how would a company or someone who's hiring, how would they kind of broadcast that they want to reach these groups? Especially in this climate now in the US where we're sort of being told not to use the phrase diversity, equity and inclusion? It seems delicate. How would a company go about that? 

09:38 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
That's a great question. A mistake that employers make is they decide oh, we're going to be second chance hire, we're going to hire a formerly incarcerated. The key is you've got to find good partners, and the same is true for immigrants, the same is true for people with disabilities. You've got to find good partners in the community who are connected with these groups, because one thing I'm super clear on in the book and in my research is not I'm not saying everybody, every immigrant or everybody who's got a disability is the right employee for you, but in the group there are some fabulous and potential employees. 

10:11 - Mark  (Host)
So you've identified these three populations. Is there a fourth or a fifth that we're not thinking? 

10:16 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
of. If I'd wanted to write it in a 900-page book, which I did not want to do, I could have included what we call disconnected youth or underemployed youth, which are young people who have finished school and have no job and are at home sleeping in the basement, their parents' basement, playing video games. This is a very poignant and very serious group that we have to look at. And the other would be, of course, would be single mothers who are underemployed, if they're employed at all. But those are other groups. But again, the book would have gotten too long and each one of these groups is a book in itself, yeah absolutely so. 

10:58 - Stacey (Host)
on the flip side, I asked about how companies could reach out, but also how do people, if they're in these groups, find the companies that are going to be hiring Great? 

11:06 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
question, great question. And again, that's where the partners come in, and they're usually community workforce development agencies, organizations that work with individuals. In Arizona there's an organization called Televerde which trains women in prison to work in high-end call centers selling software for Adobe, microsoft, sap. They get incredible training and they do this work from behind bars. When they come out of prison they have great skills. That's the kind of organization that employer might connect with and say hey look, we're looking for graduates of your program. You know, can we hire them? Or Jewish Vocational Services does incredible training of immigrants, preparing them to work, for example, in the health care sector in Massachusetts. Can I tell you a story about? 

11:56 - Stacey (Host)
it yeah, tell us a story. 

11:57 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Bajra arrived here from Bangladesh following her husband. She brought her two kids with her. Her husband told her you're going to work at a local restaurant where I know the owner. She went to, started working there immediately. She never saw any pay. Her husband collected all her income. If she complained to him he threatened to have her deported. Finally, one day she came home from work and all the furniture in the apartment was gone. She didn't know where she was going to sleep or where the kids were going to sleep. 

12:29
She worked the next seven years, two jobs, 17 hours a day, sometimes in a Dunkin' Donuts and a grocery store, just to put food on the table for her family. She finally found, through JVS, jewish Vocational Services, language training and an opportunity for a job at Boston Children's Hospital, where she became a research technician, and today she works there. She's been promoted multiple times and she's bought a house in the suburbs and you know just the stories of what these people overcome. It's wonderful, it's amazing. That's even before they got here to this country, you know, coming through totally legal immigration processes. It's just, it's so inspiring. This is not charity. We're doing this because of the workforce shortage. Remember our earlier conversation about the we need help. 

13:17 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, yeah. 

13:19 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Declining fertility rate. And we haven't even talked about the shrinking number of men participating in the workforce working age men 18 to 54. That's been going on for years. Is there fewer and fewer even qualified men? You know part of it's the opioid crisis. There are a bunch of different reasons for it and it isn't fully understood, but the bottom line is the workforce is shrinking, so we need good people. My whole argument is this is about dealing with chronic staffing shortages, which virtually any employer will roll their eyes and say yeah, you know, I can't find people who will be do the job and will keep coming back. 

13:59 - Mark  (Host)
I think you're doing good work because you're. 

14:01
I mean the word overlooked is so applicable because they have a shortage, but they won't even consider the formerly incarcerated, the person with a disability or somebody with working papers, and I love that you said. I think you started to say it now, but somewhere I saw during the research here that you say this is strategy, not charity, and you just said this is not charity, Like this is something you should be doing proactively, not avoiding it. But I don't think it's on people's radar and that's why I wanted to have you on, because I think it should be on everybody's radar. 

14:30 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Everybody's underutilizing it. Almost everybody Pass the board. They just have to. They have to try, you have to take action. You've got to start. 

14:40 - Mark  (Host)
You don't have to make it a big project as an employer. If you're hiring somebody who's formerly incarcerated, do you have to tell your current employees, or is that a breach of privacy? 

14:49 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Fantastic question, very fair, very good. It varies. In a lot of cases, like at the body shop where they started hiring people who might have been incarcerated, they had a very intentional process of informing people from top management all the way down and letting people work out their feelings about that. People would say, oh, I can't work with, I might be working next to a murderer. It's not appropriate to share that information. There's a company in the book precisely that hires these women out of Televerde who are trained to sell high-end software, and they hire them as business development reps and they've told these women who go through the same competitive process to apply for the jobs anybody else All they do. The only thing that's different is they don't react. When they see criminal history, they say that's okay, we knew that, we expected that from you, but it's your story to tell. 

15:43 - Stacey (Host)
When you're hiring the formerly incarcerated, do you want to be selective? Do you know what they're incarcerated for? Would you know that you're hiring a murderer? 

15:53 - Mark  (Host)
Just a felony right? 

15:54 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
No, absolutely not. Stacey Great question. It's up to employers, and this is something employers don't understand. They get to decide. They say look, we will not hire anyone who committed a crime, who's been convicted of a crime against women and children, or we won't hire people who are convicted of sex offenses. That's a very common sort of screen. That's important to hear. It's very situational. 

16:17 - Mark  (Host)
All right, he's out there doing God's work. 

16:19 - Stacey (Host)
You are man. 

16:20 - Mark  (Host)
Thank you, this is great. 

16:21 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
I just want to make a difference. I just want this book and my messages to get out there and to get more people, individuals like you guys and I really appreciate your support in this. Just thinking about it, just sort of aware hey, these are groups we should be thinking about. And for managers busy, busy managers. I wrote this book for busy managers who don't have a time to read something boring. It's engaging, it's fun. It's not fun. It's interesting and helpful. It's very practical, but also hopefully inspirational or inspiring. 

16:55 - Stacey (Host)
What's one message you can give to people or employers that you want to get out in the world? 

17:02 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Just consider these people. You know when you're feeling frustrated that you can't find good workers, check in, meet with, look in your region and find agencies, organizations that are working with these folks, who have people ready for employment, who would be really willing just looking for an opportunity. 

17:25 - Mark  (Host)
Simple. 

17:25 - Stacey (Host)
Love it. 

17:26 - Mark  (Host)
Yeah Well, thank you, David. This has been great. I appreciate the conversation. How can people reach? 

17:29 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
you. The easiest way to get more information about the book and my work is I have a website. I have several, but one is read R-E-A-D readhiddentalentcom. So readhiddentalentcom will get you to the first chapter. You can read the introduction for free to see if the book feels like something you want to learn more about and bring into your organization, or just read too. I've had mothers of young adults with autism find the book very inspiring because it gives them hope. It gives them a sense. There are businesses out there that are thinking about this and my child you know my adult child has a chance here, same with incarceration. Help us identify with the problems those folks are experiencing. Got it. 

18:15 - Stacey (Host)
Love it. 

18:16 - Dr. David DeLong (Guest)
Thank you so much. 

18:17 - Stacey (Host)
You're wonderful, Dr David DeLong. 

18:21 - Mark  (Host)
Thanks for joining us. It's been a great episode. Thank you all for watching. 

18:30 - Stacey (Host)
You're still here. You're still listening. Thanks for listening to the Gurus and Game Changers podcast While you're here. If you enjoyed it, please take a minute to rate this episode and leave us a quick review. We want to know what you thought of the show and what you took from it and how it might have helped you. We read and appreciate every comment. Thanks, See you next week.