Boston Globe reporter Jim O’Sullivan writes about a speech Sec. of State John Kerry delivered at MIT on the perils posed by climate change. “If we don’t go far enough fast enough, the damage we inflict could take centuries to undo — if it can be undone at all. We don’t get a second chance on this one,” Kerry said.
During a speech at MIT on climate change, Sec. of State John Kerry urged researchers to continue developing clean energy technologies, reports Scott Malone for Reuters. Researchers and innovators will create "the technological advances that forever revolutionize the way we power our world," he noted.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Visiting Lecturer Irving Wladawsky-Berger praises MIT’s Inclusive Innovation Competition, a contest that honors companies aimed at improving economic opportunities for all workers. Wladawsky-Berger writes that it’s heartening that MIT is “searching for breakthrough innovations to help improve [the] economic prospects” of workers impacted by advanced technologies.
Prof. Thomas Kochan speaks with Boston Globe reporter Hae Young Yoo about how businesses can engage and invest in their employees while still turning a profit. Kochan notes that “having some voice in how the workplace is shaped creates an environment that motivates and gives employees a real sense that they belong there.”
Erandi Palihakkara writes for The Huffington Post about the MIT Inclusive Innovation Competition (IIC), which honored companies focused on how technology can help workers across all income levels. “The goal of the IIC is to identify organizations that are harnessing digital innovations to create shared prosperity,” explains Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson.
MIT’s Inclusive Innovation Competition honored companies for innovations aimed at improving economic opportunity, reports Deirdre Fernandes for The Boston Globe. Fernandes writes that the competition was an effort “to highlight partnerships between man and machine and drive more innovation to under-served communities.”
Prof. Thomas Kochan speaks with WBUR reporter Deborah Becker about the contract dispute between Verizon and the company’s employees. Kochan says that in order to avoid these situations in the future, “we need to fundamentally change our labor policy to provide more workers access to a variety of different ways to have a voice at work.”
Bloomberg Business reporter Rebecca Greenfield writes about a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that finds that when workers have control over their schedules they tend to be more satisfied. Prof. Erin Kelly explains that at present employees "worry about if there are career consequences for working in this different way.”
Professor Thomas Kochan writes for Fortune about the latest job’s report from The Bureau of Labor Statistics and argues that the Federal Reserve should set an explicit wage growth target: “Without significant and steady progress on the pay front, the American dream is in peril.”
Research led by Professor Paul Osterman in 2013 indicates that policymakers’ focus on the “skills gap” among American workers may be misplaced, writes David Scharfenberg for The Boston Globe. According to the study, “employers, for the most part, are simply not demanding the high-level talents that the skills gap rhetoric would suggest.”
A team of researchers from MIT, Northeastern, and Harvard has found links between cell phone usage and unemployment, reports Janelle Nanos for BetaBoston. The researchers found that “cellphone use and mobility dropped significantly in areas which eventually reported massive unemployment spikes,” Nanos explains.
Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Zumbrun writes about a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that found that cell-phone records can indicate if a person has been laid off. The researchers found that “people’s social lives and mobility contracted following a layoff.”
Richard Eisenberg of Forbes speaks with Professor Ofer Sharone about his research and tips for white-collar job seekers. “Meeting with people face to face who you worked with in the past and can vouch for your abilities can help you overcome some of the barriers built into the hiring process,” says Sharone.
Scott Kirsner of BetaBoston highlights Anne Hunter’s jobs list, which has connected MIT students and alumni to potential employers since the 1990s. “The ‘jobs list’ is an MIT institution, a mailing list that any student can ask to get onto,” says alumni Michael McGraw-Herdeg. “Anne is a saint for having set the list up — I am sure it has changed lives.”
Professor Simon Johnson writes for The Guardian that relaxing some immigration constraints could help to reduce unemployment in the U.S. “[S]ome categories of immigrants tend to create jobs, so letting them in would directly increase employment opportunities for people already in the United States,” explains Johnson.