Al Gores movie “An  Inconvenient Truth” was the first time I heard the frog analogy.  Basically if you put a frog in hot water it recognizes the danger immediately and hops out.

On the other hand, if the frog is placed in cold water it will stay (Frogs like water after all).  If you slowly bring the water to boil, the frog does not recognize the danger until it is too late and boils to death.

Whose going to do the work?

Boiling the frog is not only an a apt analogy for globally warming but generally applies when the danger signs are ignored until it is too late.

A recent article I read about skilled worker shortages in Ontario reminded me of the boiling frog scenario.  In the mid 2000’s, demographers (those whose study populations) predicted most nations in the industrial world would experience labour shortages as the populations aged  (if not all) .

As time has progressed nothing immediate happened and we the populations of the industrially advanced countries, have become omplacent.

Over 40% of the Japanese population is over 60 years old.  The prediction that the retired Japanese population will overtake those working is clearly slowly coming true.

In Canada, skilled worker shortages are becoming more apparent as the aging trained workers leave the work force.  Replacememt is exacerbated by the fact the younger generation are exhibiting a tendancy to foresake manual labour, factor and trades in favour of professional roles.

In Short

We know an aging population and changes in the preferred occupations are going to lead to labour shortages.  In fact we have known this for over a decade, yet, like the frog we are just complacent.