2023-06-09 07:30
Although the next round of AI’s technological progress will
be in the background for a while, there’s no getting away from this topic. It’s cheek-to-jowl with jobs an… Read More
Blog Directory > Business Blogs > Careers & Industries Blogs > Work's New Age careers-and-industries Blog >
2023-06-02 15:14
The headline piece of this morning's Bureau of Labor
Statistics Employment Situation Summary was how the number of nonfarm payroll jobs
destroyed the estimates. I saw three of
those, r… Read More
2023-05-26 07:27
Of its meanings, different ones for “hustling” have been
most prominent at different times. First
it denoted moving quickly and effectively.
In the 1970s, it meant mo… Read More
2023-05-18 22:45
As staggering as the beginning of artificial intelligence’s
ascent has been, it is not the only area where technology or public policy
could greatly transform our country.
Here i… Read More
2023-05-12 07:22
As rushed as it may seem, the coming of ChatGP4, and the
idea of how many things AI can now do and disrupt, are now over, and it is time
for us to mop up and figure out where we are and wher… Read More
2023-05-05 14:15
One more critical Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment
Situation Summary. One more set of data
exceeding expectations and refusing to indicate any movement toward
recession. One… Read More
2023-04-28 07:20
“The elephant in the room:
a major problem or controversial issue that is obviously present but
avoided as a subject for discussion because it is more comfortable to do so.&rdquo&hell…Read More
2023-04-21 07:21
Back to the views…
Although we don’t know how strong and long-lasting the
current trend toward remote work will be, it must be factored into corporate
real estate matters, and… Read More
2023-04-14 07:50
I was surprised to see how long it has been since I had a
post about developments in working in offices, working from home or otherwise
remotely, and the combination now referred to as &ldqu&hell…Read More
2023-04-07 14:34
I can imagine the comments about this morning’s Bureau of
Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary.
Only 236,000 new jobs – indifferent.
Employment down 0.1% to… Read More
2023-04-01 17:44
Here is the final installment in this series – at least for
now.
I start with three pieces from earlier this month giving the
state of ChatGPT and chatbots in particular, which… Read More
2023-03-17 07:13
There is still no topic related to jobs and the economy hotter than this one – bank failures expectedly bailed out do not qualify – and there is no shortage of articles to review… Read More
2023-03-10 14:55
This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary was supposed to be a critical one, for the wrong reasons. Observers were hoping for decreasing employment a… Read More
2023-03-03 08:21
The series continues – and, with news about AI developments pouring out, it won’t end here. This month’s graphically scary article is “The real-life version of &lsquo&hell…Read More
2023-02-24 08:47
This issue, the second of three straight weeks of this series (the jobs report, which drives the monthly AJSN, will be released a week later than usual), is about AI-related articles from Ja… Read More
2023-02-17 08:18
We’ve been sort of stunned by ChatGPT’s recent exploits, which not only suddenly forced people to adjust their methods but solidly moved AI from the future to the present. … Read More
2023-02-10 08:08
My previous posts about AI have emphasized actual accomplishments, but mostly these were small-scale, laboratory-bound, or needed more time and iterations to become significant. … Read More
2023-02-03 15:17
January usually has the steepest drop in American employment. Millions of people end their holiday-related jobs, and not all find new ones. The gap between adjusted and unadjuste… Read More
2023-01-20 08:35
Another old thing with a still-new name, and perhaps new significance, is “quiet quitting.” Though as with most new terms not everyone agrees with its precise meaning, it s… Read More
2023-01-13 08:19
With Covid-19 and the subsequent worker’s market, the set of reasonable worker actions has expanded in many ways. This is the first of two posts showing how observers have identi… Read More
2023-01-06 14:56
Once again, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary delivered. We exceeded the matching 200,000 published predictions of net new nonfarm positions by 23,000. Season… Read More
2022-12-30 08:22
I’ve published a fair amount of material on driverless cars, but haven’t had much to say about other forms of conveyance, which could also have real effects on jobs and the econo… Read More
2022-12-23 08:20
How are we groping along with what we expected, five years ago, to now be widespread? The partially autonomous version, per “11 more crash deaths are linked to automated-tech vehicles… Read More
2022-12-16 08:34
This week, I bring my focus to the “jobs” part of “jobs and the economy.” What’s been happening? We start with a “new” idea in the works so lo… Read More
2022-12-09 08:14
When historians look back on 2022, they will see, along with the midterm elections, the recession that wasn’t, the shifting of Covid-19 from a pandemic to another bug, and Aaron Judge… Read More
2022-12-02 16:09
As with a month before, published predictions were for 200,000 net new nonfarm positions. As was within 2,000 of a month before, it turned out to be 263,000. As with almost every… Read More
2022-11-25 08:33
Another characteristic of today’s labor situation - unwillingness to put up with what workers consider unacceptably bad times on the job – keeps unfolding. To start, “Chipo… Read More
2022-11-18 08:08
On we move from last week’s look at larger propositions relating to jobs and the economy. Here are five more recently published ones. Peter Coy, in the September 5thNew York Time… Read More
2022-11-11 08:07
Since spring, I have been getting employment and economy-related articles that aren’t about specific events as much as conceptual areas which the authors think should change. Wha… Read More
2022-11-04 15:01
This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary was not supposed to be especially critical or revealing – did it turn out that way? We gained 261,000 net n… Read More
2022-10-28 08:05
The series from last month continues, with plenty more reports and views from the past month. Oldest is Trey Williams’s September 28thYahoo Finance “Employees worry they’ll… Read More
2022-10-21 07:08
Over the past several months, articles chronicling the state of AI had something in common. What is it? The first, by Nico Grant and Cade Metz in the June 12thNew York Times, “Go… Read More
2022-10-14 07:24
It’s been five years since the world was expecting an end, or nearly so, to people driving “meatmobiles,” a briefly-used name for human-controlled vehicles. Since the… Read More
2022-10-07 14:23
Per this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary, the good work times are still rolling. We gained 263,000 net new nonfarm positions, close to the two p… Read More
2022-09-30 08:30
On to this month, and reaching out in scope a bit: “Working from home around the world,” by Cevat Giray Aksoy et al. in Brookings on September 7th, offered that “no other e… Read More
2022-09-23 07:08
What I get for not writing posts on this timely topic for eight weeks is enough material for two – and some intriguing and worthy ideas have come up. So here are ones from August… Read More
2022-09-16 07:29
I haven’t checked in on this section of work for a while, where news has been slow, but there has been some. The last time we looked, ridesharers Uber and Lyft, along with lodgin… Read More
2022-09-09 07:06
For something progressing since Willy Loman’s 1940s admonition to his son that he shouldn’t do anything menial when in one, since “they have office boys,” improvement… Read More
2022-09-02 14:29
This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary looked fine at the top, with its 315,000 net new nonfarm positions vindicating the published 300,000 estimate, an… Read More
2022-08-26 07:16
In the six weeks since I posted on labor unions’ resurgence, there has been a flurry of news. This headline firm, as reported by Ken Martin in Fox Business on August 12th, has a proble… Read More
2022-08-19 07:04
Yes, there is more on this topic, some basic until you look underneath it. When we read that “U.S. employers posted 10.7 million job openings in June, reflecting continued strength in… Read More
2022-08-12 07:21
There is a real problem understanding our economy out there, even among people whose knowledge is supposed to be nuanced. Here are titles of articles published on August 5th, after tha… Read More
2022-08-05 13:45
What a jobs report! This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary, anticipated as “key” and “critical,” could have disappointed nobody… Read More
2022-07-29 07:39
Maybe because the issue is so unsettled, and ultimately involves tens of billions of dollars a year, we’re seeing more and more about whether cubicle sorts of workers need to be in the… Read More
2022-07-22 07:17
Aside from interest rates, inflation rates, and the chance of a rather peculiar recession, what’s been happening with the American economy? I’ve written several times over the ye… Read More
2022-07-15 07:17
Since the time when labor unions were needed for the likes of getting workers’ widows paid for the days when they died on the job, they have taken a long fall in value, constructivenes… Read More
2022-07-08 13:55
You can hardly scan a newspaper business section without seeing references to a recession – probable, almost certain, here already. I know that we can declare one when the Gross… Read More
2022-07-01 07:44
This very ongoing issue is nothing new – employees and companies waged battles on telecommuting when George H.W. Bush was president, with little resolution or even lessons learned or r… Read More
2022-06-17 07:40
These areas are all over the business news, and beyond. Let’s clear the air. First, inflation is high, but not atrocious, by historical standards. The latest three months&r&hell…Read More
2022-06-10 07:19
Inflation and the pandemic have been the two largest American 2020s news stories, but not all. Before they, and the Ukraine war, took over the headlines, another combined area gathered… Read More
2022-06-03 14:06
This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary turned out close to what people expected – almost. We gained 390,000 net new nonfarm positions, reaso… Read More
Inflation, Interest Rates, Recession, Stagflation, “The Era Of Cheap And Plenty,” And Getting A Grip
2022-05-27 07:24
Unjustified fears are hardly restricted to the far left or far right these days. Consider our economic situation, which looms highest on American’s current concerns. First, the o… Read More
2022-05-20 07:26
Over a trillion dollars of the American gross domestic product goes to moving us around. Being able to go almost anywhere safely is one of the great things about the modern age, and, o… Read More
2022-05-13 07:32
The largest jobs-and-the-economy news story of 2022 is clearly here. There has been almost too much coverage and commentary, even when it’s not politically distorted. So le… Read More
2022-05-06 13:39
After some wild Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary editions, it’s good in a way to see one that matched predictions and was consistent with common sense. The… Read More
2022-04-29 07:14
Big topics, little communication. My cupboard is not quite bare, but has some odds and ends, which are worthwhile, even if they add up to one post instead of the three these matters se… Read More
2022-04-22 07:09
What’s happening with our financial system? We’ve heard a lot about inflation, but there’s more on other aspects as well. All from the last month – let&rs&hell…Read More
2022-04-08 07:09
One of the great employment-related 2020s issues is whether to work, or allow work, from an office. As I have written, that’s really a 30-year-old problem, pushed to the forefron… Read More
2022-04-01 14:45
Four weeks ago, I predicted this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary would again be especially strong. Was it? We added 431,000 net new nonfarm payr… Read More
2022-03-25 07:21
While the pandemic has influenced almost everything businesses have been doing in the past year, it has not been the only source of change. Stories about how companies have been operat… Read More
2022-03-18 07:23
On Wednesday, the solid Federal Reserve news finally hit. Per “Fed raises rates and projects six more increases in 2002” (The New York Times, March 16th), the federal funds… Read More
2022-03-11 08:20
There’s no lack of employees, any more than there are not enough $10 diamond rings. More and more businesses are proving it. That’s what I think. What about oth… Read More
2022-03-04 15:02
We left January’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary by calling it a muddled mess, made that way by peaking Omicron cases and annual adjustments. This mornin… Read More
2022-02-25 08:21
“Lord, it was an awful time, and then the war started” – Bill James In some ways, what this modern American thinker wrote about the decade ending in 1919 fit yesterday.&nbs&hell…Read More
2022-02-18 08:15
Ukraine, the Super Bowl, and the Winter Olympics have all been larger news stories, but the financial pages have focused on another topic. In February 9th’s “Peak inflation and v… Read More
2022-02-11 08:34
On American jobs, what can we expect for the rest of 2022? Most of it we don’t know, but there are considerations that will help us. We start with the oldest article, on a… Read More
2022-02-04 14:52
This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary was expected to be “strange” – and it was. There was ostensible good news in several plac… Read More
2022-01-28 08:19
Once in a while I accumulate a little pile of articles worth sharing, but which don’t fit with others. Here is the latest. The oldest is from over a year ago, but still pertinent… Read More
2022-01-21 08:28
What I, along with many others, thought would be the massive technical improvement of the 2020s seems to have failed. Four years ago, there were so many articles about that effort that… Read More
2022-01-14 08:24
It’s strange to realize that most people in this country have never experienced price increases of more than 4% annually, but that’s correct. We have not seen inflation as… Read More
2022-01-07 14:52
Not too often have I seen back-to-back Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summaries this similar. We start with the current marquee number, that of net new nonfarm payroll… Read More
2021-12-31 08:18
We’ve heard a lot about people not only refusing work but leaving their positions. How can we understand it better? Per Paul Davidson, updated December 9th in USA Today, “J… Read More
2021-12-24 08:19
It’s strange, or maybe it isn’t, that on a topic with so many high-quality facts regularly issued, viewpoints and conclusions should differ so much. Maybe that’s a re… Read More
2021-12-17 08:18
The issue of businesses not being able to fill positions has been getting press since at least May. How accurate and complete, though, is what has been published about it? Before the b… Read More
2021-12-10 08:13
This is a highly jobs-related area which has had less press than I might have thought, probably due to emphasis on the pay demands, quitting, workspace-setting, and vaccination tendencies of… Read More
2021-12-03 15:02
That outcome may not seem possible, but it’s what happened with this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary. The number of net new nonfarm positi… Read More
2021-11-27 00:00
To start with the same publication and date we finished with last week, in the September 28thHarvard Business ReviewTsedal Neeley offered “12 Questions About Hybrid Work, Answered.&rdq&hell…Read More
2021-11-19 08:16
We start this week’s installment with one piece having a headline with an unexpected meaning. John Zavitsanos’s July 26thNew York Times “We’re Kidding Ourselves… Read More
2021-11-12 08:16
One of the steadiest press topics this year has been what used to be called telecommuting, or employees doing their duties from where they live. That was an old interest of mine, from… Read More
2021-11-05 13:52
With the peculiar Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary results we have been getting, capped by the previous one, it was reassuring to see a report showing that we improved… Read More
2021-10-29 07:25
Changes in outlooks from both employers and employees have, outside the direct effect of the Covid-19 virus, been the largest feature of working in in America this year. What do I mean… Read More
2021-10-22 07:48
In June, per “Prices Pop Again, and Fed and White House Seek to Ease Inflation Fears” (Jeanna Smialek and Jim Tankersley, The New York Times, July 13th), “a key measure of… Read More
2021-10-15 07:24
On my copy of the first article on this topic I saw, Cindy Wang and Enda Curran’s “The World Economy’s Supply Chain Problem Keeps Getting Worse” (Bloomberg.com, Augus… Read More
2021-10-08 14:03
Another Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary, another fall in unemployment, another disappointing count of net new nonfarm payroll positions. That came in at 194,000… Read More
2021-10-01 07:44
In these times of unfilled jobs and higher pay, we’re getting a flurry of articles suggesting we cut back from five days a week, 40 hours a week, or both. The oldest I saw was a… Read More
2021-09-24 07:26
It’s bad enough that the United States has had, per the New York Times, 42.6 million coronavirus cases and 680,000 deaths. How we have handled Covid-19 has precipitated real conc… Read More
2021-09-17 07:21
Especially if you have been reading this blog, you know what on this subject is happening. Positions, ever more plentiful, are staying open, and numerous companies continue resisting r… Read More
2021-09-10 07:29
With Covid-19 as the root cause, over the past couple of months there has been at least a decade’s worth of developments in how employers and employees get together. For a summary, see… Read More
2021-09-03 14:04
This time, nearly all the numbers in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary decreased. Starting with net new nonfarm payroll positions, which at 235,000 hit neithe… Read More
2021-08-27 07:21
Back in February 2021 – that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? – the largest national issue we faced was the rapidly growing capability of people, companies, institutio… Read More
2021-08-20 07:23
In my 2012 Work’s New Age, I wrote extensively about the coming of machines and expected them soon to take over tens of millions of jobs. That hasn’t happened – yet… Read More
2021-08-13 07:15
Before the pandemic struck, I called the use of artificial intelligence, after but related to electronic surveillance, the second most important current American issue. The problem is… Read More
2021-08-06 14:06
There were high expectations for this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary, and it exceeded them. The 943,000 net new nonfarm positions were about 10… Read More
2021-07-30 07:18
It’s been an eventful Covid-19 week. To clear up two spreading misconceptions, per Apoorva Mandavilli’s “As Infections Rise, C.D.C. Urges Some Vaccinated Americans to Wear… Read More
2021-07-23 07:22
We have reached yet another new pandemic stage. Wednesday’s 7-day average of new American cases, according to The New York Times, was 41,310, more than any day before June 30th o… Read More
2021-07-16 07:51
Is it true that great masses of people are refusing to take jobs, when they worked before the pandemic started? I’ll give that partial credit, as millions still fit that category… Read More
2021-07-09 07:18
Why are more advertised positions going unfilled? First, that “more” is accurate. Per “U.S. job openings, quits hit record highs in April” (Lucia Mutikani, Reut… Read More
2021-07-02 13:59
The number of advertised jobs keeps rising to new highs, but the seekers are there too, and they’re not all connecting. That’s one of the findings from this morning’s Burea… Read More
2021-06-25 07:54
Cash compensation is the most common and basic reason for working. It has recently changed in some ways and may do that more soon. What have we seen and considered over the past… Read More
2021-06-18 07:18
Thank you for most likely being among the 1,700-plus people who read my March 12th post, “Eleven Brutal Truths on Office Design and Working from Home”! I’m back to th… Read More
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