May 2, 2025
Without Qualified Workers, Our CHIPS Investments Could Be Money Down the Drain
Three years ago, the Biden administration, backed by big bipartisan majorities in Congress, launched the CHIPS and Science Act to revitalize domestic semiconductor manufacturing. After decades of outsourcing that reduced the U.S. production share of advanced chips from 37 percent to 10 percent, this “industrial policy” investment was justified as necessary for national security and as a measure to reinvigorate…
May 1, 2025
Tariffs Plus AI Makes for a Rocky Job Market. How Should Workers Prepare?
In today’s labor market, few occupations are safe from AI disruption. It’s been a rough month for hiring plans. The market volatility ignited by President Donald Trump’s tariff policies has made business planning difficult, and that includes any intentions of hiring. Combined with the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence, disruptions to the labor market don’t…
March 12, 2025
Stop and Go
Automated driving is picking up speed. Several years ago there was a bit of a moral panic about the prospect of automated freight transportation replacing human truck drivers. These concerns were, in part, about the prospect of automating yet another large and important industry that was dominated by noncollege, male workers. The issue faded from…
February 25, 2025
Go Fast, Break HR
How the AI talent race is reshaping recruitment. A new survey of 250 technical leaders reveals a striking paradox: Companies are dramatically increasing AI investments—some by up to 75 percent in 2025—while simultaneously finding a talent well that is running dry. Ninety-four percent of tech leaders identify talent shortages as their primary barrier to AI innovation, and…
February 24, 2025
A Glut of MBAs?
It’s all about the skills, not the credentials. You know the labor market times are changing when Harvard MBAs start showing up in the unemployment stories. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, 23 percent of recent Harvard Business School grads were still looking for work three months after graduation. In 2022, that figure was only 10 percent….
February 11, 2025
AI and the Future of Work Looks Bright
One of the hottest guessing games in workforce development is figuring out how generative artificial intelligence will affect jobs and how to prepare students and workers for an AI-infused economy. The future of work looks bright, but the full potential of AI to increase productivity and raise wages and incomes will only be realized if…
January 2, 2025
AI Will Have a Major Impact on Labor Markets. Here’s How the US Can Prepare
The nation can do better at forecasting AI-driven job and skill changes, including with a data-focused nonprofit that examines the technology’s impact. Markets are the killer app for efficiently organizing unfathomably complex human activities to deliver innovation and prosperity. They can also shift suddenly, creating winners and losers, even as broad measures of economic health…
October 8, 2024
The Longshoremen Are Making the Wrong Demands
They shouldn’t be trying to block automation. They should be trying adapt to it. The International Longshoremen’s Association ended a three-day strike last Thursday after reaching a deal with a consortium of port operators for a large wage increase for the the 47,000 dockworkers, phased in over the next few years. The deal gives both…
June 6, 2024
How New Graduates Can Thrive in a Workplace Dominated by AI
Dwight Eisenhower’s advice about plans and planning is still relevant today On June 6, the world will mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the 40th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “the Boys of Pont du Hoc” speech honoring those who helped turn back the Nazi threat on the beaches of Normandy. We are now as far from Reagan’s speech as the speech was…
February 20, 2024
Planning a Career in the Age of AI
After decades of industrial robots, factory layoffs, and outsourcing, automation has finally arrived in the cubicle. A recent Wall Street Journal article spotlighted how the new “robots for the mind”—the complex algorithms and language models of generative AI—are creating rising uncertainty in the professional class. In the past, automation has generally been more of a concern for blue-collar workers, especially those in the…