An Ominous Projection

Area businesses already battling an intense workforce crisis received an additional dose of sobering news recently when MassINC released a report indicating that the Bay State could lose as much as 10% of its college-educated workforce by the end of the decade, a drop of roughly 129,000 people. The projected decline stems from a number of factors, said the think tank, including a huge wave of retiring baby boomers, falling numbers of school-aged children in the state, and declining immigration. To sum it all up, there are fewer people going to college — certainly not enough to offset the number of boomers who are retiring — and fewer people coming into the state — from other countries and from other states, with the latter the result of the exploding cost of living in Massachusetts.