Manpower has done its seventh-annual Talent Shortage survey and found that 49% of American companies are struggling to fill key high-paying jobs.

According to the more than 1,300 U. S. employers surveyed, the positions that are most difficult to fill include Skilled Trades, Engineers and IT Staff, all of which have appeared on the U. S. list multiple times since the survey began in 2006.

Manpower's Beth Herman says as demographics change, industry evolves, and baby noomers age, America is literally running out of a workforce. 

It's worse than overseas, too:  34% of companies worldwide are having difficulty filling positions.  Herman tells WSB in many industries, it's definitely an employee's market. "When it comes to IT and sales representatives, there's a lot of those people, and they have been steadily in demand.  So they're moving around like chess pieces and it's so hard to grab them and to hold on to them," says Herman.

Why is the American workforce lacking in skills that could land them steady, lucrative jobs?  Herman says often, we are not pushing our sons and daughters into those fields.

Many parents focus on a strictly academic university track for which all students are neither qualified nor even interested in exploring.  The "My kid's going to be a doctor or a lawyer" mentality, which Herman says many parents frequently express, excludes many feasible careers, several of which have salaries closer to six figures than not."They can learn a trade, and come out and find work at a more than livable wage," says Herman.  "Unfortunately, it's just not 'sexy.'  It's not 'sexy' to tell Little Johnny to go become a plumber or an HVAC mechanic or a maintenance mechanic, or to be a driver, or to drive a forklift." Yet several of those trades have been on

Manpower's survey every year, and she points out many people in those fields have had steady employment--even throughout the recession.Rounding out the top 10 most in-demand jobs:  Sales Representatives, Accounting and Finance Staff, Drivers, Mechanics, Nurses, Machinists/Machine Operators, and Teachers.