This paper examines shifts over time in the relative demand for skilled labor in the United States. Although de-skilling in the conventional sense did occur overall in nineteenth century manufacturing, a more nuanced picture is that occupations "hollowed out": the share of "middle-skill" jobs - artisans - declined while those of "high-skill" - white collar, non-production workers - and "low-skill" - operatives and laborers increased. De-skilling did not occur in the aggregate economy; rather, the aggregate shares of low skill jobs decreased, middle skill jobs remained steady, and high skill jobs expanded from 1850 to the early twentieth century. The pattern of monotonic skill upgrading continued through much of the twentieth century until the recent "polarization" of labor demand since the late 1980s. New archival evidence on wages suggests that the demand for high skill (white collar) workers grew more rapidly than the supply starting well before the Civil War.

This report is the culmination of a three‐year research project conducted by George Brown College (GBC). As a member of the Learning Outcomes Assessment Consortium, sponsored and funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), this project responds to HEQCO’s request for colleges and universities to develop, implement and share new assessment tools that “measure and validate the attainment of these generic learning and cognitive skills."

A dozen disruptive technologies can add up to $1 trillion in GDP by 2025 and help bring millions of Indians up the MGI Empowerment Line. This report is part of our ongoing work about the impact of technology on national economies and on Indian economic empowerment. Our goal is to provide a fact base and insights about important technological developments that will help business leaders and policy makers develop appropriate strategies and responses.

This qualitative dissertation explores the perceptions of how and why teachers might integrate technology to support their goals of equity and inclusion with a group of teachers who identify as culturally responsive in their pedagogy and describe themselves as fluent in the use of technology in school. Teachers working with students of diverse backgrounds were chosen purposively using an "extreme case sampling" method in order to interview experienced and pedagogically aligned participants. Drawing on in-depth interviews, a review of class artifacts and documents, and a focus group, this study provides critical insights into how self-identified culturally relevant teachers use technology. Discussion of the findings focused on two areas. The first examined how the unique affordances of technology lend themselves as a critical resource for teachers engaged in culturally responsive pedagogy. The second looked at how the self-directed approach of participant teachers led them to seek learning opportunities through informal means, in particular with peers they saw as aligned with their own thoughtful practice in service of their beliefs and values for equity and inclusion. Participants provided evidence that technology can be an active dimension of their work toward equity and inclusion. Thus, this research expands upon existing literature on pedagogical practice in both technology in education and diverse classrooms.

In this article we discuss the futures of work and robotics. We evaluate key future trends in the field of robotics and analyse different scenarios regarding the futures of human beings and work life. Subsequently, we present a roadmap of robotics, which covers key aspects of industrial and service robotics, discuss technology foresight insights and inter-linkages to robotics, and identify three critical technology roadmaps: (1) the technological future of robotics, (2) digitalization and (3) ICT technologies. Finally, we analyse key challenges of future work life and labor policy in the European Union: economic, social, and political and inform readers about some important strategic projects of the European Union, especially about European robotics strategy.

Alberta is well positioned to thrive amid disruptors like demographic change and rapid technological development but meeting the demand for skilled workers will be essential to ensuring its long-term prosperity. This report examines the state of skills gaps in Alberta, drawing on relevant literature, current data, and a series of interviews with Alberta employers and labour market experts. The first in a series, it lays the groundwork for in-depth analyses of the skills requirements in seven key sectors of the province’s economy, providing a broad overview of skills supply and demand in the province.

For twenty years seem competency standards of the 21st century. These repositories are numerous and the Observatory presented a few in 2013 (Ouellet and Hart, 2013). All these references are similar, but recently dawning we see more in tune with skills this century whose titles are moving away from original formulations such as communication skills, collaboration, critical thinking, solving problems. The repository of the Future Institute (Institute for the Future2) is particularly interesting in this regard. The IFTF the repository describes six engine changes being understood by this term, disturbances which are profoundly changing the nature and content of work (IFTF, 2011, p.3-5). The deployment of these changes calls for the development of essential skills to work in today's world and tomorrow (IFTF, 2016). After a brief presentation engine changes, we describe these skills. [googletranslate_en]

To our knowledge, the United States is the only jurisdiction that has successfully implemented a netbilling program similar to what Ontario is proposing. There are a few other jurisdictions around the world that have implemented some components of a net-tuition program, but these do not fully integrate government and institutional aid. What follows is an outline of the types of net-tuition systems used in other jurisdictions, how they are implemented, and the lessons that Ontario can learn.

This paper examines challenges to freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining for workers in the gig economy and explores the broad range of strategies that gig-economy workers are using to build collective agency, and to promote effective regulation of gig work.