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In recent years, more than 1 million people a year have immigrated to the U.S., a level not seen since before the Great Depression. This boom is most apparent in the urban areas where immigrants tend to cluster. Given their numbers, these newly arrived residents must have some effect on local labor markets. Yet economists have been puzzled by the evidence that immigration has little impact on the wages and employment of native-born workers. So how great is immigration’s impact on local labor markets? Is it limited to markets where immigrants settle, or is it spread across the country? Ethan Lewis sifts through the theory and evidence to answer these questions.

In this report the authors make a case that the hollowing out of middle-class jobs in America has as much to do with the technology revolution and computerization of tasks as with global pressures like China. In so doing, they predict what the future of work will be in America and what it will take for the middle class to succeed. The collapse of the once substantial middle-class job picture has begun a robust debate among those who argue that it has its roots in policy versus those who argue that it has its roots in structural changes in the economy. The authors delve deeply into structural economic changes brought about by technology. The paper describes the exact kind of work tasks that are now, or will be, automated. The authors argue that the future human labor market will center on three kinds of work: solving unstructured problems; working with new information; and carrying out non-routine manual tasks. The bulk of the rest of the work will be done by computers with some work reserved for low wage workers abroad. The policy challenge goes well beyond calls for more years of education or better access to education. The authors argue, that in order to prepare young people to do the jobs computers cannot do, a re-focus on an education system around one objective is required: giving students the foundational skills in problem-solving and communication that computers don't have.

The retirement of baby boomers will create a shortage of skilled workers in mature economies worldwide, leading to higher wages and lower profits for the next 15 years. Is your company at risk of labor shortages? It depends on occupations, geographies, automation, and immigration, among other factors. The Conference Board has developed an index that helps companies forecast their risk of labor shortages in hundreds of occupations and industries in the US and Europe. This report discusses implications for companies and mitigating actions they can take.

The good news is that many organizations are adapting. In the preliminary findings of a Cisco survey of more than 1300 knowledge workers across nine countries, 93 percent believed that their organizations are making changes for the future of work. But that doesn’t mean it’s enough. In looking at changes implemented across key areas, the survey revealed that many organizations still have a long way to go. This is true for investing in the technology foundation — including collaboration tools, devices, applications, mobility, and automation — where 69 percent are driving changes. But it is especially critical when it comes to driving cultural changes, adapting the work environment, and changing the way work is being done. True transformation occurs when organizations drive change on multiple fronts, including creating the kind of culture that values trust, individual growth, work/life balance, diversity, and the free exchange of ideas, as well as the organizational structure that enables faster and more dynamic ways of working.

This document describes the development of analytic rubrics for competency assessment project. The purpose of this report is to describe the process of developing a set of general analytic rubrics to assess competencies in design, communication and teamwork, and a set of outcomes and indicators to assess problem analysis and investigation. The work to develop the rubrics was structured into three main phases. In the first or planning phase, a review of the literature was carried out to create a comprehensive list of learning outcomes in the five competency areas under investigation. A list of more specific, measurable learning outcomes, called indicators, was also compiled. The resulting comprehensive list of learning outcomes and indicators was distilled by removing redundancy between the systems, filling content gaps, and grouping indicators into common learning outcome categories. In phase two, rubric descriptors for design, communication and teamwork were drafted and modified through consultation with instructors and departmental administrators. The outcomes and indicators for problem analysis and investigation were validated through a systematic Delphi technique and are presented in this report. Work on a set of descriptors for the problem analysis and investigation indicators is ongoing. The third and final phase involved testing of the design, communication and teamwork rubrics. In the case of design and communication, shadow testing sessions were conducted with graduate students with grading experience (assessors). In particular, assessors were asked to evaluate samples of student work using the rubrics and provide feedback through focus groups. Testing of the teamwork rubric consisted of quasi‐ implementation with teaching assistants (TAs) and think‐aloud sessions with instructors (experts). The objective of testing was to further validate the outcomes, indicators and rubric descriptors and to obtain feedback on how they could be improved.

I identify local, inter-industry productivity spillovers net of congestion and competition in twentieth century US manufacturing. I do so along four “Marshallian” industry connectivities: input supplying, output consuming, labor pooling, and ideas sharing. For identification, I use as natural experiments two major inventions in newly digitized, city-industry-year level US Censuses of Manufactures spanning 1880-1990: the automobile in 1904 and the semiconductor in 1958. Because both inventions were large, unanticipated demand shocks to supplier industries, I can use the pre-invention share of a city’s manufacturing employment in the shocked supplier industries an exogenous measure of the city’s invention shock. I can then identify the net connectivity spillovers by comparing pre- and post-invention employment between supplier-connected and - unconnected industries, across cities with large versus small pre-invention supplier shares. I find that in the early twentieth century, net connectivity spillovers were near zero, except for negative net output consuming spillovers. In the late twentieth century, net output consuming spillovers attenuated to zero while net labor pooling spillovers became negative. These results are consistent with falling transportation costs, increased occupational specialization, and reduced worker migration. Together, they point to limited and decreasing local, inter-industry productivity spillovers relative to congestion and competition in twentieth century US manufacturing.

This discussion paper argues that public policy should seek to accelerate automation to reap the productivity benefits, while building new institutions to ensure the dividends of technological change are broadly shared. To that end, it sets out five propositions. The first two are primarily analytical, relating to the likely macroeconomic effects of automation and its potential to accelerate inequalities of wealth and income. The final three set out how we believe public policy should make sure that automation works for the common good. These propositions discuss how best to manage the acceleration of automation, the public institutions needed to manage the ethical and regulatory challenges that autonomous technologies will create, and the new models of common ownership needed to ensure the fruits of automation are fairly shared. Together, we believe these ideas can ensure a new machine age helps us all lead fuller human lives.

New Accenture Strategy research1 shows 78 percent of business leaders expect their organizations to be a digital business in the next three years. And if they are to realize the benefits, they anticipate from being digital, the readiness of their workforce must become a priority. From concerns around artificial intelligence, to those about employee resistance, the perceived landmines can mean organizations hesitate to make the workforce changes needed to advance their digital journeys. Indeed, business leaders feel one of the greatest challenges to being digital is not having the required skills and capabilities. Yet they should feel confident about moving forward with their workforce plans. Our research shows executives and employees are well aligned on the benefits of being digital. If anything, employees are even more positive than their leaders about the impact of digital on their work and jobs, and more proactive in addressing gaps in digital competencies. Business leaders should develop their teams with the know-how to support their digital strategies and experiment with different ways of organizing work. They need to form new types of partnerships to make the most of non-traditional talent pools. They must build a diverse, digitally savvy team that can inspire flexible, agile ways of working. And they must lead by example. This report is one of a series offering pragmatic advice on how to embrace digital technologies to not only compete, but also drive new value to help businesses grow. As business leaders seek to increase productivity and agility, how can their organizations be digital by default and secure the skills and talent needed to innovate and build the workforce of the future?

This report contains labour market intelligence for the land-based and environmental industries derived from nationally available statistics. The land-based and environmental sector is dominated by small businesses. Eighty-five per cent of these businesses employ fewer than five people. The sector is forecast to require nearly 600,000 new entrants before 2020 as more than half the people currently employed in the sector are over the age of 45. This report reviews the workforce development issues and skill needs for this sector.