Labor and 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.”

In an article for Fortune, Prof. Amy Glasmeier and Alison Omens of JUST Capital underscore the importance of paying workers a living wage. “Those companies that will thrive in both the current and post-pandemic economy will be those that prioritize their workers—not just in their rhetoric but in paying them a living wage,” they write.

Writing for The New York Times, Prof. David Autor explores how the current labor shortage provides an opportunity to improve the quality of jobs in the U.S. “The period of labor scarcity, then, is an opportunity to catalyze better working conditions for those who need them most,” writes Autor.

Prof. David Autor speaks with Kara Miller of GBH’s Innovation Hub about the impact of Covid-19 on the future of work.

Motherboard reporter Lauren Kaori Gurley spotlights Unit, a new digital platform developed by MIT graduate James Earl White that is aimed at easing the unionization process. Gurley writes that White “founded Unit after volunteering with several labor organizing campaigns in college, and studying how unions can reduce income inequality.”

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.

Senior lecturer Robert Pozen writes for Fortune about how businesses need to implement new methods for measuring employee productivity and performance. Pozen recommends an approach he developed called “success metrics,” noting that “under this approach, the manager sets objectives for their team as part of the effort to fulfill the organization’s goals. Then the manager and team members discuss how they will know at the end of the relevant period whether they have been successful in achieving these objectives.”

Prof. Thomas Kochan speaks with Reuters reporter Timothy Appell about how the decision to support a union campaign can often become a risk assessment for employees. When it comes to individual campaigns in a workplace, “the reality sets in - when the employer campaigns so hard that you think you’re putting your job at risk,” says Kochan.

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.”