The emphasis on recruiting passive talent is contributing to the current state of high unemployment, particularly in the US, which is probably the most profound ever experienced by people alive today, according to Kevin Wheeler, Future of Talent Institute founder and chairman.

Exacerbating the situation further are school systems’ failures to adapt to the demands of the modern workplace and the trend toward constantly evolving jobs, Wheeler said.

Speaking exclusively to Recruiter, the San Francisco-based Wheeler said of the US unemployment situation: “I think this is the first time probably in our lifetime that there’s been anything like this here in the US. This number of long-term unemployed … may be as much or greater than the Great Depression. There’s almost no one alive who’s ever run into this before, where husband and wife are both unemployed, and losing their house and everything. It’s very close to crisis in the US.”

Last week, US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said 45% of the nation’s unemployed have been jobless for at least six months. Bernanke described the situation “as a national crisis”.

Wheeler went on to say: “I think Europe has the better safety net but there’s a lot of unemployed or underemployed people, and I think that is a real challenge. People with PhDs [doctorates] driving a taxi or they’ve given up and dropped out. Over the next five years, I think it will become a major issue for most governments in Europe and certainly in the US.”

The world of work is undergoing “a real structural change”, he said. Technology has diminished the need for large volumes of workers and certain kinds of jobs. The modern job “requires very high-level skills of a complex nature” and academic or skills training, he said. “On top of that, our school system hasn’t kept up in any way with what’s going on” and continues to “turn out people to be clerks, secretaries and factory workers… And you’ve got fewer and fewer jobs that require those skills”.

The quick-changing nature and responsibilities of jobs has significant impact on hiring trends. “Whoever gets hired has to be agile and versatile, and has to be able to learn new things really quickly and have skills or a mindset around how to learn,” Wheeler said.

However, people with good qualifications, experience and potential are being overlooked if they are actually looking for work and, particularly, if they are unemployed. “I just don’t understand what the justification is for a passive over active candidate except, something you can’t get is more attractive than something you can get, right?” he said. “It boils down to basic human psychology -if you can’t have it, if it’s perceived as scarce or valuable, then it is.”

Wheeler recently visited the UK for the #TruLondon conference.