The Logistics of Education and Education of Logistic

Logistics plays an increasingly complex and critical role in corporate operations and competitiveness, and companies must hire an educated and properly trained workforce in order to grow.

What workforce supply is coming from our educational systems, and what overall demand will there be for them?

The Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics, a division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, has released new research showing that based on U.S. Department of Labor data, the United States will have approximately 270,200 logistics-related job openings that will need to be filled every year from now until 2018 to keep up with projected industry growth.

The State of Georgia has put extensive resources into increasing the number of trained workers available for the state and the country, including logistics programs from the high school level to Ph.D. programs. This “Logistics of Education & Education of Logistics” report explores the supply and demand of the logistics workforce, how they are trained and the potential gaps the industry may see in the future.

What is logistics? A fairly simple question, but one with a complex and seemingly ever-changing answer. Perhaps a better question is… What isn’t logistics?
No matter where we go, how we get there, where we shop, or what we buy, logistics plays a vital role in making it all happen. The truth is that logistics is one of the world’s largest, most complex, but sometimes one of the best kept secrets of industries. It is a foundation that impacts companies of all types and sizes, as well as everyday consumers, whether we see it in action or not.

In fact, logistics is really not just an industry, it is an ecosystem in which all sectors and participants rely on one another to move freight from Point A to Point B. This includes companies that provide logistics services as well as those that are enabled by the use of logistics to move products to their customers, or raw materials to a manufacturing plant, and in 2011, U.S. businesses spent $1.3 trillion on logistics-related costs to make all this commerce flow.

The better connected this logistics ecosystem, the more efficient, cost-effective, secure and reliable the movement of their products can be. This can equate to improved margins for the shipper and potentially translate to lower prices for consumers.