A new report released today by the Boston College Center on Aging and Work warns the country that today's strong economy is in for a very rude awakening by 2012.

Why?

Because of a changing workforce demographic.

Today's Baby Boomers are getting near retirement age and there won't be anyone with the same skills to take their places when they retire.

According to the report:

Only 37% of employers have even adopted strategies to keep workers working past the usual retirement age.


(Source: goer.state.ny.us)

Researchers of the report make several recommendations like implementing flexible work options for employees and encouraging managers to share knowledge among employees at different career stages.

But none of those recommendations address the real issue of who is going to fill those eventual vacant spots.

As of now, there exists in this country an untapped source with the potential to fill this depletion of skills needed in the next few years: undocumented students.

There are literally thousands, if not millions, of undocumented students who have the ganas and the grades to go to college.

What is unfortunate is that too many states have only short-term vision and can't see what the future holds for their particular state workforce. Otherwise, they wouldn't be doing their best to penalize these students, who more than likely grew up in this country, by making college overly expensive for these kids and not giving them any hope that they can put their degrees to work once they receive them.

Kids who want to go into education, medicine, engineering and other service sectors are being forced to waste their intellects rather than put them to use to help this country in the future.

Giving these kids a chance and letting them receive degrees in the very fields that will experience shortages by 2012 just makes sense and is the smart thing to do.

What is asinine is watching this talent slip away, along with a better future for all of us.