Out Now: Episode 415: Registered Apprenticeship Programs in the Clean Energy Sector With Dr. Janell Hills

Ep 90 – What Workplace Issues Matter to the RNC & DNC?

workplace, politics, republican, democratic

You might be surprised to know that this year is an election year and that last week was the Republican National Convention. On Monday, 1.6 million tweets were sent by 449,000 people in the US about the first night of the RNC and 9,900 tweets were sent in one minute during Melania Trump’s infamous speech. […]

May Jobs: Recession, Full Employment or Something Else?

The May jobs report dropped last Friday and it was a shocking departure from the slow and steady growth trend I’ve been writing about for months. Now, if you’ve been reading my monthly job growth posts, you know I’m not one to throw around words like “shocking” lightly. But the US economy added only 38,000 jobs, and […]

What if the Robot Apocalypse Was More Like a Robot Utopia?

What if robots don’t steal all of our jobs and leave us unemployed shells of our former selves? I’ve written a lot about the downside of the expanded role for robotics, AIs and machine learning at work and in the marketplace but there’s an upside to it too. In manufacturing and agriculture robots have both […]

Universal Basic Income After the Robot Apocalypse

Back in January, startup accelerator Y Combinator announced that it would fund research into universal basic income. This made waves for two reasons: 1) it’s still unusual for tech giants to take an interest in social science, despite it being increasingly common for tech innovators to dabble in it, and 2) universal basic income is usually […]

The US Turtleconomy Is Basically Ok

The US economy continues its turtle-like, slow and steady growth, even as overseas markets experience turmoil. The latest BLS jobs report is out and it’s the same story it’s been for months now: unemployment rose ever so slightly to 5%, with service keeping healthy and oil and gas still troubled; wages ticked up again, another […]

What Will Wage Growth Look Like in 2016?

Wage growth is a thornier subject than it first appears. The real value of a raise can only be measured when adjusted for inflation and cost of living, and considered in conjunction with benefits, vacation time and other work perks. In other words, while wage growth may seem simple – average wages went up in […]