Five potential game changers for the US economy

US-based management consulting firm McKinsey & Company pinpoints five catalysts that could deliver renewal and rapid growth to the American economy.

Although the Great Recession officially came to an end four years ago, and though we see encouraging signs from the major American stock market indices, growth in the world’s largest economy is still lackluster, with unemployment unacceptably high.

Here are the five game changers, which, if properly utilized, would provide a significant boost to US GDP:

Energy: Shale oil and gas

• Advances in horizontal drilling and fracking
• Potential for 1.7 million additional jobs
• Significantly reduce net energy imports, possibly to zero

Trade: More competitiveness in knowledge-intensive goods

• Possibilities for export boosts in cars, commercial airliners, medical devices, and petrochemicals.
• Potential for 1.8 million new jobs.

Big-data: Productivity-boosting analytics 

• Transform the sea of data into insights that create operational efficiencies.
• Potential savings of up to $285 billion in health care and government services.

Infrastructure: Swiftly tackle the backlog of maintenance and upgrades of roads, highways, bridges, transit and water systems

• Increase infrastructure spending by one percentage point of GDP to erase competitive disadvantage.
• Potential for $1.8 million new jobs.

Talent: Reverse erosion of education and skills development

• More industry-specific training at post-secondary level.
• More graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math.
• Better digital learning programs.
• Potentially adding as much as $1.7 trillion to annual GDP.

To read the report in full, click here.