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February 14, 2023

Microsoft Is Getting Ready to Eat Google’s Lunch

The new Bing Chat appears to be an existential threat to Google’s search dominance. You’ve heard, endlessly, about ChatGPT, but you may not have had a chance to look at its “child” Bing Chat, a Microsoft product in its testing phase that I got access to around midnight the night before last. Think of ChatGPT as…

By Brent Orrell

February 13, 2023

The Eerie Familiarity of California’s Boom-Bust Cycle

Those trying to ride a corporate unicorn to a major IPO should consider the lessons of their nineteenth-century forebears. On January 24, 1848, James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey who had taken up residence near Sutter’s Fort in northeast California, was attempting to establish a timber mill to feed burgeoning construction in nearby…

By Brent Orrell

February 8, 2023

Where the Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Hardest

Companies are cutting programmers, human resources, and DEI staffers. The hiring burst of 517,000 new jobs in January ran contrary to the conventional economic wisdom, namely that the Federal Reserve’s war on inflation is slowing interest-rate sensitive sectors like finance and technology and presaging a broader slowdown. Tech and finance did, indeed, show some losses—just not enough to…

By Brent Orrell

January 24, 2023

“Gig,” Contract, and Nontraditional Workers

A recurring theme of the Workforce Futures Initiative has been how little we know about the evolving needs of workers and businesses or even how the nation’s spatially and numerically vast labor market actually operates. This is especially true when we consider the “gig” or contract worker economy, which has grown dramatically in the past…

By Brent Orrell

January 19, 2023

Labor Unions and the “Double-Helix” of America’s Workforce Development Future

The role of labor unions in the future of American workforce development depends largely on how we conceive of the needs and demands facing workers and the economy. Traditionally, we’ve thought of workforce development in terms of formal, technical skill development and the so-called “skills gap,” the difference between the credentials and skills our training…

By Brent Orrell

January 3, 2023

Systemic Disadvantage

The term “systemic racism” freezes social, political, and policy conversation. As soon as the words are uttered, contending parties retreat to their respective corners to engage in a mutual misunderstanding guaranteed to produce anguish and anger on both sides. In a way, the resulting stasis serves the interests of both sides: Progressives are relieved of…

By Brent Orrell

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…

By Brent Orrell | Daniel A. Cox

January 1, 2023

Perspective: Is your boss on your DOS? How remote work monitoring can work

The challenge is to develop and use tools that reinforce trust rather than weaken it As COVID-19 recedes, American workers are filtering, slowly and fitfully, back to the office. In the past few years, remote work has gone from rarity to commonplace to an ongoing, contentious renegotiation between workers and employers. One front in this…

By Brent Orrell | Matthew Leger

January 17, 2020

Rethinking Reentry

Policymakers and researchers have been searching for a solution to persistently high rates of recidivism for decades. While the number of incarcerated individuals under federal and state jurisdiction has decreased in recent years and is currently at a 10-year low, the United States still incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation. This level of incarceration has real consequences.  By some estimates, nearly 70…

By Brent Orrell | Paul Ryan