October 25, 2024
How Workforce Education Can Boost Earnings and Fill Jobs
Republicans and Democrats alike agree about the importance of workforce training. They’re right: Despite a recent labor-market cooling, there are still 7.7 million unfilled jobs in the United States. Unfortunately, America’s workforce-education system is a patchwork of dubious efficacy. Workforce programs are underfunded, tangled in red tape, and often fail to achieve their goals. Fixing this is hard: There’s…
April 11, 2024
What a New Report on 10 years of AI Research Reveals
‘Lifelong learning’ is not just a buzzword. It’s a necessity as artificial intelligence changes the workplace As artificial intelligence advances, the landscape of work may be undergoing a seismic shift. The economic potential of this emerging technology is staggering; many predict that it will be a transformative force on par with innovations like the steam engine, electricity or the transistor. To paraphrase Bette Davis in “All About Eve,” “Fasten…
January 31, 2024
Perspective: The ‘social workplace’ and why it matters to Zoomers
Social connections are increasingly as important as pay to younger workers. A mission-led workplace can help In his 1759 book “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Adam Smith observed that human sociality is the taproot of economics. The instinct to “truck, barter and exchange,” Smith argued, arises out of our need for others and is the…
November 13, 2023
The Jobless AI Future Is Still a Long Way Off
Tech billionaire Elon Musk recently prophesied that there “will come a point where no job is needed,” owing to advances in artificial intelligence. But the fear that AI will cause mass unemployment is rooted in a zero-sum mentality that fundamentally misunderstands how economies evolve. WASHINGTON, DC – In a recent discussion with British Prime Minister Rishi…
July 27, 2023
Time to Do Something About the NILFs
The overall employment situation looks great in the United States—so why are so many men not working? The Wall Street Journal reports that work among prime-age Americans—those between 25 and 54 years of age—is at the highest rate in two decades, driven by rising wages and worker shortages. After years of decline in labor force participation, this is certainly welcome…
July 27, 2023
Perspective: Can artificial intelligence teach us to be better workers?
So-called ‘soft skills’ are in short supply in the workforce and society at large. AI could help us get better A few weeks ago, McKinsey & Company published updated estimates on when key anticipated characteristics of artificial intelligence might arrive — including things like creativity, logical reasoning, and social/emotional reasoning, sensing and output. McKinsey’s timeline for increased capacity across a range of such capabilities…
March 27, 2023
Here Are the Kinds of Jobs Chat AI Is Likeliest to Affect
A new analysis estimates that a fifth of all U.S. jobs are in the category most vulnerable to disruption. Researchers at OpenAI—the company behind ChatGPT—and the University of Pennsylvania came out last week with a first look at the potential labor market impact of chat technology. If these initial “guesstimates” hold up, we might be looking at…
January 3, 2023
Perspective: Women Are More Likely to Make Friends at Work Than Men. Here’s Why That Matters
Despite efforts to close the gender wage gap, the difference between men’s and women’s wages remains a stubborn fixture of modern society. Women still make 83 cents for every dollar men make. Commonly offered explanations include gender discrimination and occupational segregation. One study identified a “care penalty” that disproportionately affects women “when workers in jobs that require higher levels…