Jobs

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall spotlights Prof. David Autor’s research exploring the state of men in the U.S., including the growing gender gaps in educational attainment and the labor market.   

A new study co-authored by Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu finds that countries with older workforces are seeing a larger increase in the use of robots, reports Timothy Aeppel for Reuters. Acemoglu and his colleague Pascual Restrepo of Boston University found that “age alone accounted for 35% of the variation between countries in their adoption of robots, with those having older workers far more likely to adopt the machines.”

Writing for Forbes, Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, makes the case that society is undergoing a Great Reframing in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. “The pandemic, with far more impact than the Great Recession, has created a new psychosocial equilibrium — a renewed and heightened vigilance and priority to determine what is truly important and to make choices accordingly,” writes Coughlin. “Our view of life has been reframed.”

New York Times reporter Ben Casselman spotlights a study by Prof. Daron Acemoglu that finds many technological advances have replaced human labor without increasing productivity. “If we automated less, we would not actually have generated that much less output but we would have had a very different trajectory for inequality,” says Acemoglu.

Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money spotlights Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s research exploring how automation is driving inequality in America. Rosalsky notes that Acemoglu hopes his research “will get policymakers to take a new, smarter approach to technological change.”

A new working paper by MIT researchers finds that automation is replacing more workers than outsourcing, reports Scott Tong for Marketplace. Prof. Daron Acemoglu notes that workers displaced by machines won’t be able to find better quality jobs unless “we invest in new technologies that create new tasks and new opportunities for workers.” 

In an article for Fortune, Prof. Erin Kelly and Prof. Phyllis Moen of the University of Minnesota explore how to craft effective hybrid work policies that can benefit both employees and employers. Kelly and Moen advocate for “inviting teams to discuss and learn from how they adapted during the pandemic and how they struggled, and to imagine what might work well for them.”

Writing for The New York Times, senior lecturer Robert Pozen and Alexandra Samuel explore how to create a hybrid workplace. “There is no single right way to design a hybrid workplace. But asking the right questions can help each team shape what we call the Goldilocks plan — with not too much or too little remote work,” they write.

In an article for Politico, Professor of the practice Zeynep Ton explores how pay disclosures could help shed led on whether workers are earning enough money to support their families. “Building an economy founded on good jobs will require deep, structural transformation, but you can only manage change if you measure," writes Ton and her co-author Katie Bach. “The best way to spur movement towards creating good jobs may be to start requiring that companies publish take-home pay data.”

Writing for Forbes, Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, underscores the need to improve job quality, increase access to education and training, and invest in technologies that augment workers. “The public and private sectors must also be innovative in the ways in which they can collaborate in creating a work of the future that leads to greater shared prosperity,” writes Reynolds.

Bloomberg reporters Georgina McKay and Tracy Alloway spotlight a new working paper on income inequality by MIT researchers that finds that highly-paying jobs are now more likely to be located within highly-paid companies. The findings suggest that “a government looking to reduce inequality might want to target sectors where bifurcation between ‘high-paying’ and ‘low-paying’ has been most extreme.”

Reuters reporter Trevor Hunnicutt spotlights how Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, has been tapped by the Biden administration to serve on the National Economic Council.

Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, speaks with Soledad O’Brien about how to ensure workers aren’t left behind in the transition to a more digital workforce. “If we can find pathways to the middle where we do see growth and demand for workers - construction, healthcare, the trades, manufacturing, places where we are seeing opportunities - that move can really be a new lifeline for people,” says Reynolds. 

Prof. Amy Glasmeier speaks with Greg Iacuurci of CNBC about the calculator she and her colleagues developed that displays what an actual living wage is in different areas of the country. “People are not surviving on the minimum wage,” says Glasmeier, 

Forbes contributor Adi Gaskell spotlights how the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future recently released a comprehensive report examining the future of work. Gaskell writes that the Task Force's report emphasizes the “pressing issues of our time as one of improving the quality of jobs to ensure that prosperity is shared across the economy.”