"It's going to get worse. That makes your job more important. I'd make the case that the HR, the training, the work force development process in coming years will be more important than ever before because of the extraordinarily low, slow growth in the labor pool," he said.

Thredgold described the world economy as "dynamite."

"The global economy is rock-solid, impressive, almost from A to Z," he said, noting that after-inflation growth this year will be nearly 5 percent. That would be the fifth straight year of growth of at least 4 percent.

"We've not seen that sustained performance from the global economy since the early 1970s. And we benefit in the state, we benefit in this country from strong global economic performance."

Thredgold also spoke about the enormous opportunities for the world in the future. He noted that more than half the adults in the world have never made a phone call, there are relatively few college graduates, people are living longer, computers are getting faster, fiber capacity is huge and people have tapped only 10 percent of the Internet's capabilities.

"An incredible future awaits us," he said.

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com