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Discussion Paper
The Failure of Big Data to Address Problems in the Workforce during the COVID-19 Era
The COVID-19-driven recession has devastated the U.S. labor market and American workers. In March 2020, in the span of a month, initial unemployment weekly claims increased from 216,000 (U.S. Department of Labor 2020c) to a peak of 6.8 million, setting new records for unemployment since the Great Depression (U.S. Department of Labor 2020a). The total insured unemployment rate increased from 1.2 percent on March 14 to 14.8 percent on May 16, which translates to about 22 million unemployed (U.S. Department of Labor 2020b).
Discussion Paper
COVID-19, Workers, and Policy
As coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) spreads around the world and across the United States, many policymakers and public health officials are encouraging employers to tell workers to work remotely or to stay home when they or their family members are sick. There are significant questions, though, about how many people can work from home. Many U.S. workers in retail, restaurants, manufacturing, and other occupations cannot do so. This Workforce Currents post will explore who can work from home and identify practices and policies to support workers who cannot work from home in the event of a pandemic ...
Discussion Paper
Career Pathways in a Changing Labor Market
Recently, labor economists, workforce development policy analysts, and workforce development practitioners gathered at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to examine the effects of automation and shifting labor demands on the future of work. Presenters included Dan Restuccia of Burning Glass Technologies, Sara Lamback of Jobs for the Future, Daniel Kreisman of Georgia State University, Chad Shearer of the Brookings Institution, Susan Lund of McKinsey Global Institute, and Nancey Green Leigh and Ben Kraft of Georgia Institute of Technology. The researchers collected data from job postings, ...
Discussion Paper
Discontent, Occupational Change, and the Roles Workers Are Leaving amid the Great Resignation
Workers are dissatisfied with the world of work and are holding out for flexible and worker-centric opportunities. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity (CWEO) has been hosting conversations with workers who have expressed displeasure with on-the-job treatment from both customers and management, inflexible work schedules, poor work-life balance, inability to work remotely or with a hybrid schedule, inadequate pay and benefits, limited opportunities for growth and training, and pay raises that are not keeping up with inflation. In fact, the Pew ...
Discussion Paper
The Importance of Addressing Long-Term Unemployment for Economic Recovery
In April 2020, the U.S. unemployment rate skyrocketed to 14.8 percent from a low of 3.5 percent because of stay-at-home orders and fears over the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the initial lockdown in April and May 2020, the unemployment rate declined rapidly, reaching 5.9 percent in June 2021. Nonetheless, many workers, a large fraction of whom have been out of work for a long time, face challenges.According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), fewer workers had been laid off or fired in June 2021 than in the previous month, and 850,000 new jobs had been added. However, the number of ...
Discussion Paper
Public Libraries and the Workforce
This Workforce Currents article presents the broad range of ways that public libraries are responding to COVID-19. It provides a brief overview of the role of libraries and their range of services, how they responded to workforce needs in the past, and how they are responding and preparing for long-term impacts of the current pandemic. Libraries are mobilizing for the economic fallout associated with COVID-19 such as facilitating unemployment insurance enrollment, referrals to food banks, and other services for immediate needs. Library staff are also thinking longer term about how ...
Discussion Paper
Policies to Close the Southern Skills Gap
Southern states have a number of economic and demographic characteristics that make them unique from the rest of the country—and increase the need to build skills to advance economic development in the region.
Discussion Paper
Can Lessons from the Great Recession Guide Policy Responses to the Pandemic-Driven Economic Crisis?
In a 1948 speech to the British House of Commons, Winston Churchill warned, "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it." As the U.S. economy struggles to reopen safely and recover, what are the lessons from the Great Recession that might help guide how policymakers respond to the pandemic-driven economic crisis?1 What should we expect over the coming months and years as the nation struggles to restore its economy, which before the pandemic had finally achieved historically low unemployment levels? In June 2020, there is much that we do not know or would even attempt to ...
Discussion Paper
Aligning Capital, Training, and Economic Mobility
In recent years, skills development and training as a way to help low- and moderate-income (LMI) individuals access quality jobs or career ladders have received a lot of focus. Experts have long noted that workers need to be able to access training throughout their careers to have the skills employers require. However, public funding for such programs has not risen to meet this increased demand for workforce development and training services. Instead, adjusted for inflation, the core federal workforce development funding programs are down well over 85 percent since 1980. This begs the ...
Discussion Paper
By Degree(s): Measuring Employer Demand for AI Skills by Educational Requirements
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has prompted widespread interest and discussion about its potential to transform the labor market. For workforce development practitioners, a key issue is how AI is changing the nature of work, mainly through changes in the skills workers need to be competitive for the jobs of today and of the future. In this Workforce Currents, we explore the growth of employer demand for AI skills in online job postings data between 2010 and 2024. Lightcast, a labor analytics firm, provides job postings data that includes several useful features of ...