The Role of Technological Job Displacement in the Future of Work
on behalf of the niosh future award initiative thank you for joining us for today's webinar the role of technological job displacement in the future of work my name is cha cha chang and i will be your moderator before we get started i would like to let all of our attendees know that the nash future work initiative which was launched in 2019 and its corresponding work groups have many ongoing and upcoming activities the initiative launched its webinar series last year three webinars a year are hosted each focus on one of our nine future work priority topics this is the fourth webinar in the series you can view the previous webinars on the nash future of work initiative web page also be sure to join us later this year for two more webinars in the series if you would like to learn more about the series and the initiative please do visit our website without further ado let me introduce your moderator and the two speakers for today i am cha cha chang i coordinate i'm a coordinator in the knowledge office for total worker health and niosh healthy work design and cross and well-being cross sector program i lead collaborations to share research and identify promising practices for advancing worker safety health and well-being i am uh my previous work in the uh nash office of the director included leading enrollment outreach for the world's world trade center health program and serving as liaison to the national advisory committee on occupational safety and health within nashville total warehouse office for total work health i'm very proud that we released the dodge worker well-being questionnaire last year your first speaker will be dr naomi swanson dr naomi swanson is a senior science advisor in the niagara division of science integration and co-manager for the healthy work design and cross-sector and well-being cross-sector program she is an active member of niagara future award initiative where she brings a unique perspective on how different future of work focal areas such as technological job displacement impact worker safety health and well-being dr swanson received her m.a in experimental psychology specializing in perception cognition and memory and her phd in industrial engineering specializing in social technical systems and office ergonomics from the university of wisconsin-madison her second speaker will be shannon mead shannon mean is the executive director of flour's workplace policy institute wpi where she advocates on behalf of the employer community to affect workplace policies at the state and federal levels additionally ms mead is the executive director of the emma coalition a wi future of work initiative taking a prominent advocacy role in the growing fields of artificial intelligence automation robotics and the gig economy and the resulting effects of technological technology induced displacement of employees tied in the workplace and in the workforce prior to this she was vice president of public policy and legal advocacy for the national restaurant association this meet also previously worked as a senior policy advisor at the u.s chamber of commerce where she was engaged in legislative and regulatory matters impacting the business community ms mee received her undergraduate degree from emory henry college and her law degree from the anthony's malia law school at george mason university and with that dr swanson thank you for joining us today and we can get started you cha-cha it's great to be here today um next slide please um technological job displacement is a priority topic for our future work initiative here at niosh so i'll start my presentation with our future work definition of technological job displacement technological job displacement happens when jobs or job tasks that are traditionally performed by humans are replaced by technology an important thing to note is that technological displacement interacts with all the other priority topics of the future of work initiative next slide please it certainly affects the way that organizations and jobs are designed and work arrangements and artificial intelligence is behind many of the changes in work tasks that we currently see and will see going forward robots of course are one of the most feared types of technology when it comes to job displacement demographics affect job displacement for example who is most vulnerable job displacement affects economic security particularly if the replacement jobs have lower pay and benefits and security and finally skills both influence the rate of technological job displacement and the adjustment to it next slide please and i'm sorry go back please um and within the job displacement topic there are numerous sub-topics of importance um many of which shannon and i will be covering today in our presentations there are the types of technology that are fueling job displacement such as automation and digitization and the effects of displacement on jobs next slide please i'll start with a little bit of history to remind all of us that technological job displacement has been a concern for hundreds if not thousands of years humans have used machines for hundreds of years to make their work easier and safer safer for example better agricultural equipment improved modes of transportation and so forth the industrial revolution though was quite a shock in western society and transformed the workplace it had traumatic effects we've all learned about the ludites destroying the textile machinery that was taking their jobs as skilled artisans so there are long-standing fears about what automation can do to workers and the pace of change has been increasing rapidly much more so in the past which can fuel our concerns about how technology will affect the need for human labor in the workplace today's technology involves smart machines and processes there isn't much of a limit on its reach the machine and equipment can be installed pretty much anywhere robots themselves are increasingly working alongside humans as assistants and it is likely that in the future they will be in some type of co-worker role next slide please as i mentioned previously there's a great deal of fear about automation and particularly robots taking jobs from us in the most dystopian scenarios every job will be automated and humans will be completely replaced the opposite view is that automation will take over all the undesirable and dangerous jobs leaving humans with the most fulfilling jobs and very safe workplaces and the truth probably lies somewhere in between these two viewpoints particularly given the complex effects of automation next slide please there are widely varying estimates of the impact of automation on jobs ranging from a low of nine percent to a high of 50 percent of current jobs that could be automated automation could have three types of effects on jobs humans could be replaced in a large number of jobs with that number increasing with advantage advances in technological capabilities automation will shift the types of jobs done by humans or transform jobs but won't replace many jobs there will be automation of some tasks but not um replacement of the jobs there will be a net increase in jobs because of the increased productivity and innovation from technological change next slide please i i clearly remember when the fray and osborne paper came out sometimes this is called the oxford study because um it became huge news because of its predictions about job loss due to technology um they were predicting that up to 50 of us jobs could be lost frey and osborne focused on the potential for technological substitution and automation by occupation and they used task descriptions from the u.s bureau of labor statistics flonet system along with judgments of the potential for automating different tasks done by a panel of experts for over 700 detailed u.s occupations they concluded that by 2023 to 2033 uh 10 to 20 years from when they wrote their paper that 47 of us jobs were at high risk to automation and that low wage occupations and occupations requiring less education were particularly at risk next slide please that study really made people sit up and pay attention to the possibility of many people losing their jobs in the near future and it was followed by several studies that took a look at the effect of automation on jobs on job displacement from some different angles aren't said all in 2016 argued that the whole occupational analysis that was done by fray and osborne overestimates the homogeneity of work within occupations and that it underestimates the activities within occupations that are hard to automate their focus was on worker reports of tasks that they performed in their jobs and when they took this approach they estimated that nine percent of u.s jobs were at risk of replacement by technology then the mckinsey institute took a similar kind of approach of examining the risk for of automation of tasks within occupations and they focused on the complexity of tasks within occupations um they formed seven task groups and three three of these task groups were deemed to have high potential for automation those with predictable physical work those um with data processing and data collection next slide please they deemed four task groups to have a much lower potential to be automated those that had unpredictable physical work um personal interactions decision making planning and creative tasks and managing and developing people and overall they estimated that in sixty percent of occupations up to thirty percent of activities could be automated next slide please um the u.s bureau of labor statistics or
bls weighed in around this time as well and keep in mind that the bls has decades of experience predicting and projecting occupational trends they have more than 100 years of data and these data show no instance of long-standing substantial employment loss due to technological change in their projections of future labor force participation by occupation between 2016 and 2026 they projected few occupations with job loss and an overall employment growth of 11.5 million jobs their conclusion was that technological change and employment growth are not incompatible next slide um i thought it would be interesting to to um tell what ai experts have said about the impact of technology on jobs there was a recent study by gritzmacher and colleagues that surveyed attendees of three 2018 ai conferences and they asked them about ai labor displacement of workers and they projected that 22 percent of tasks that humans currently do for pay could be automated with existing ai within five years forty percent of tasks and within ten years sixty percent of tasks and then um ai systems would be able to automate ninety percent of human tasks in 25 years and 99 of human tasks in 50 years next slide please um we as occupational safety and health researchers and professionals know how important it is to get the worker viewpoint on this issue and i'll summarize a couple of studies that did this mcginnis and all use data from the european skills and jobs survey is a survey of european union workers to develop a measure of what they called skills displacing technological change or sdt their interest was in the association between technological change the task content of jobs and the skill formation or skill mismatch in eu workers and the results were interesting 43 percent of eu workers had experienced recent changes in the technology they used 52 percent of workers reported that it was moderately or very likely that several of their skills would become outdated within five years next slide the sectors where worker skills were most at risk of being displaced were it the financial services utilities professional scientific and technical services with um again it managerial health and engineering occupations most at risk next slide the workers who scored high on their skills displacing technol technological change or sdt measure for those that had higher skills higher education and more on-the-job training and upskilling not what you would have expected um slide 21 next slide kozak and his colleagues analyzed euro barometer data from eu members and found the majority of eu workers were concerned about automation replacing jobs workers who had lower educational levels and that were in manual jobs had higher automa automation insecurity workers from european union countries for advanced technology was more widely applied had significantly less automation in security next slide there are a number of things to keep in mind about the job replacement projections out there one is that automation doesn't have binary effects it doesn't just create jobs or replace jobs rather it transforms jobs and we have ample historical evidence of this across all industry sectors second the job displacement projections aren't being examined to see how they may differ from economic baselines how they differ from the backdrop of normal workforce movement you need to you need to take into account the labor force turnover that occurs in a shifting and innovative economy for example in 2018 in any given month 3.4 to 4 percent of the total workforce left a job third technological changes aren't necessarily unidirectional but technology can make workers more productive it can enhance skills which can lead to higher wages or it can replace people and an example is that there's some evidence that more productive manufacturing firms that adopt robots had substantial increases in output and increases in jobs number four automation and ai can be costly to implement and it takes time and capital to diffuse across an industry automation doesn't happen instantly and as i'll point out in a bit maybe more costly than not implementing it number five you have to question the notion that technology can automate any task given enough data for pattern recognition i think the jury's still out on this assumption given the progress with automation and ai that we've seen thus far next slide please some other factors to keep in mind about automation technological changes by themselves are not the only thing that affect the spread of automation when human labor is replaced by automation the price of goods generally goes down however when the price is cheaper the demand for goods or services may increase thus the need for human labor may not change or it may increase the lower costs of some goods and services may free up money in people's budgets to afford other goods and services and this can increase the need for human labor for these other goods and services also getting rid of routine tasks can free up workers to focus on non-routine and creative aspects of jobs next slide please looking at technological impacts numerous analyses indicate that low wage jobs are at highest risk of automation however low wages may actually slow the speed of automation and in a way be productive for those jobs for some time it's more economical not to automate those jobs and if it's not if it is more economical not to automate those jobs and then as technology costs decrease and low labor costs are no longer an advantage then technology will replace the jobs and you need to keep in mind also that some low pay jobs will likely not be automated for a long time if ever and these are jobs such as child care or home health care mainly because of the social aspects that are required by the job there are labor market considerations new technologies require new skills and skill gaps and shortages can slow the adoption of automation there are regulatory and social acceptance considerations people have to accept and trust the new trust technology and the regulation framework needs to kept catch up with it and there are demographic changes that can affect the adoption of technology as well an example could be the aging of the population which may affect the mix of skilled labor that's available for elder care and create demand for more technological health and caregiving next slide please um job displacement can have very serious consequences for workers research has found that workers that are in occupations that are at high risk of of automation were less likely over the long haul to remain employed and had higher rates of disability and mortality there can be gender issues with technological changes some jobs that are dominated by women workers such as clerical jobs may be at greater risk of technological job displacement workers with chronic illnesses that are at substantially greater risk of displacement jobs that they are in tend to be lower wage lower skilled jobs and workers displaced by technology can have more difficulty finding new employment and that employment may be a downgrade in skills and wages next job please our next next slide please automation can benefit workers it can create entirely new tasks and jobs such as piloting drones it can do tasks and activities that can easily be done by humans such as analyzing big data it can work in unhealthy or dangerous environments such as hazmat situations or it can perform dangerous manual tasks next slide please it can enhance human capabilities for example exoskeletons can allow workers to lift heavy loads safely and assistive devices for people with disability allow them to do work they otherwise might not be able to do it's like next slide please so in conclusion automation is happening at an increasing pace and it's going to impact almost all occupations jobs that are highly routine and immediable to automation are at most risk we are likely to see short-term displacement from technological change but in the long term historically there are employment gains next slide please the thing that is certain is that automation is going to change jobs this is going to create a greater demand for more educated workers especially those with technology and soft skills um creative decision making and interpersonal skills will be emphasized these are skills we can't automate and there will be a new specialist um role there will be new specialist roles such as big data ai and machine learning specialists and robotics engineers and employers are going to have to commit to lifelong learning reskilling and upskilling for their labor forces and make education of their employees a priority and that concludes my presentation thank you thank you very much um thanks very much um uh naomi's last point is an excellent segue uh i think into my presentation today it's good to be with with you this afternoon and i very much appreciate the opportunity next slide please so let me just give you a little bit of um detail about my organization and our coalition so that you understand our perspectives on on some of these issues littler mendelson we are the largest management side labor and employment law firm in the world littler's workplace policy institute is essentially the government affairs the policy and advocacy arm of the firm we provide our clients with a lot of insights and intel into what is happening here in washington dc and around the the states on you know a variety of uh labor and employment uh policy developments and we work uh with the employer community at large uh through coalitions and through other business groups um on a variety of legislative and regulatory matters and i like to think of us i i am a registered federal lobbyist of you know really influencing workplace policies that um are advantageous to our clients and we're working you know through that both at the executive the legislative and the and the judicial branches of government the emma coalition uh this is our future of work initiative our our future of work coalition um i was previously um at the national restaurant association overseeing their policy team there and um joined with um wpi to form this coalition because as you know the restaurant industry is very labor-intensive uh industry and you know already before covid there was a lot of investments and efforts underway you know to really focus more on you know um ways to automate certain job functions and so you know it just really made a lot of sense to partner with wpi to to form this coalition we created it as a non-profit a non-partisan organization it's its own 501c3 and really working with employers and employees to prepare for what we call what we trademarked as the techno technology-induced displacement of employees which what we call time next slide please so this caption the age of disruption um you know really captures what we have all been through the last couple of years given the impacts of covet 19 and and now this series of concurrent challenges we are all dealing with today coming out of this pandemic which obviously includes worker dislocation you know for example in my previous industry the restaurant industry alone hemorrhaged over 2 million job losses many of those workers have moved on to other jobs in other industries and other sectors and are not coming back all contributing to you know the labor shortage issue the great resignation you know you hear a lot about this today um over four million people during the pandemic actually quit their jobs for a variety of reasons you know some were in uh very public facing position uh positions uh others had child care issues uh many were over the age of 55 and just decided you know to take early retirement leave the workforce all together there are projections uh that many more will continue to quit their jobs this year forbes is reporting that 79 of employed job seekers believe that they can make more money by switching jobs and staying put in their current uh position so you know i think the great resignation is not over and i don't think it's ending anytime soon i'm afraid i think this is going to be uh something we continue um to to to to to look at and you know obviously i'd be remiss if i didn't miss mention the supply chain disruption you know this consumer pent up demand for goods and services that's outweighing supply today and obviously inflation on the rise prices are going up on everything that's including groceries transportation the cost of cars you know making it really hard on working families really hard on people trying to get to and from work so you know from an employer perspective operating a business in a pandemic with a crushing labor shortage with new employment laws on the way um you know new regulations coming from the department of labor from the national labor relations board uh you know all of this presents a number of challenges and you know many businesses simply don't have the resources to thrive in an environment of booming demand and short supply high inflation tight labor market stress supply chains dwindling liquidity increased compliance costs all of these things are putting massive strains on many small businesses many small businesses obviously the job creators in this country and all of that really impacting um the workforce and and the employees so i think uh you know with all of these challenges playing out we have to ask ourselves what are we missing while we're watching covet 19 play out and i think what is happening is is the digital transformation is accelerating it was already on this trajectory but i think covet 19 has obviously accelerated the digital transformation and with that we have dueling problems you know workers are unable to find good paying jobs that fit their skills and employers are struggling to hire skilled workers for these in-demand jobs and these emerging roles hence the skills gap obviously strong investments and long-term training is critical naom me talked about the need for upskilling and reskilling obviously substantial investments are needed to and are critical to solving these challenges and the skills mismatch that we all talk about we also have to ask ourselves you know what are these jobs of the future given this accelerated digital transformation that's underway are we able to accurately predict the jobs of the future next slide please this slide um is somewhat repetitive but i think it sums it up of where we are with respect to this unpredictable work environment a seismic seismic shift in how employers are operating today and just these evolving workplace policies next slide so you know this is where we are a uh workforce shortage and skills gap uh every employer every company we talk to recruitment and retention is top of mind it's a top priority it's something everyone is dealing with in one way or the other i mentioned you know employers are needing to hire for positions we hear this every day um in demand jobs new skills do we have you know that's the real issue do we have accurate labor market data to identify these in demand jobs and skills that are needed to fill these jobs and therefore you know the investments and the training comes from that and then you know obviously as naomi said workers needing upskilling and reskilling uh to to go along with it with the transformation um next slide please tied in the states uh the states are very forward thinking on these issues uh some more than others um you know given these economic realities i think the states have really taken it upon themselves to lead the charge and to begin preparing their workforces for the coming tied for this digital transformation washington state i listen to them first and foremost they have done a remarkable job at getting ahead of this and wrapping their arms around it they created a future of work project several years ago and they really had a great effort in terms of bringing everybody to the table so legislators representatives from organized labor business leaders to address this this problem and to begin making recommendations they came out with a report that was submitted to their state legislature i'm not quite sure where they are on that process today but they were really uh you know making a good faith effort at beginning to get something together to think about this new jersey's another great example they too created a future of work uh task force uh on the research and analysis on the challenges and opportunities opportunities presented by ai um next slide please the list goes on pennsylvania um created the keystone economic development and workforce command center they theirs is a mix of public and private partnership with labor and industry too to study these workforce needs and demands california governor newsom he also established one of these workforce commissions to study the future of work the impact of technology on work workers employers jobs and society and um you know there are other states that have very similar efforts i would also mention to you that the state chambers across the country are doing a very good job there's a growing effort of some state chambers uh taking on these issues in fact we are working with some of them on a massive research process project a repository if you will of some of these best practices and what states are doing uh to to reskill and upskill their workforces next slide please as the federal initiatives um there are some good things happening um up on the hill capitol hill there's a congressional future of work caucus that's being led uh by representatives lisa blunt rochester democratic from uh democrat from delaware and representative brian steele republican from wisconsin so a good uh bipartisan effort on the hill to try to get at and study the future of work issues house committee on education and labor right before the pandemic um started and everything shut shut down in in march of 2020 they held a hearing right before christmas um on the future of work and they were really beginning to delve into this issue and had planned a series of hearings thereafter but you know again covet sort of changed the trajectory and and the priority on everything but hopefully you know they will come back to it and then lastly i i put here the workf the workforce innovation and opportunity act wioa uh reauthorization as we all know it um leoa is up for reauthorization um don't know if the congress will get to it this year perhaps next year maybe maybe not as you know midterms elections are nearing the corner but it certainly is an opportunity for lawmakers to really make some um efforts toward expanding and strengthening uh workforce development systems and perhaps even appropriating additional uh funding for um for wioa because wioa money goes out you know to the states to the to the workforce boards and uh and that's how you know training gets disseminated uh dollars gets disseminated out into the states next slide please this slide i think is important uh for a variety of of reasons it's the importance of labor force data um i think that uh understanding the complex dynamics of the us labor market which [Music] you know it's been confounded by the the impacts of covet 19 and its displacement of workhorses is key to identifying in-demand jobs skills um guiding investments in education and training and ultimately i think you know the nation's economic recovery so many workers were were displaced and people have moved on some haven't moved on at all um and have just dropped out of the of of the labor force so here's the key effective use of labor market information and research is critical it's critical for lawmakers to make wise decisions and investments it's critical for employers for educators and others to make informed decisions to guide resource allocation and really i think ultimately achieve better employment outcomes what is true is that you know even as the pandemic is raging on hopefully we're nearing the end um and technological advances are made the workplace the workforce is is going to continue to rapidly transform employers need the ability to leverage real-time uh economy-wide current data to inform better strategies and mitigate those associated risks but you know people we talk to educators academia employers we talk to the requisite data is not there to respond to the labor situation and a federal solution is badly needed um so you know i will talk to you more about some things that we're working on legislatively but i also want to mention here that i think you know given the growing digitization of the labor markets which includes you know social media sites social networks internet job postings you know everything is transforming resume sites there's a constant source of new and current data that the federal government could capture and harness to provide more timely details of you know occupational demand including skills and certifications that are being sought so i think there's a real um need here to enhance and improve the labor force data that we're dealing with today next slide so i come back to um my organization our coalition and our advocacy initiatives and the projects that we're working on it really has become a nationwide advocacy effort in partnership with companies and business across the country different trade organizations different trade groups here in washington dc but also around the states with the state chambers as i mentioned our research um projects that that are underway there and others and you know we are engaged in an ongoing uh legislative effort to improve the labor force data it's a proposal that would make this real time economy wide because we really are trying to get at supporting and identifying economy-wide trends and emerging roles and the skills that are needed for these in-demand jobs uh i think that is is one of the most critical things that we can do and improve on as we emerge out of this pandemic and try to get our economy back and and hopefully as workers are re-entering the labor force and making sure that people have the skills necessary to take the in-demand jobs and with that i'm happy to take any questions thank you very much um i want to make sure that we have time for uh questions and i think we will have plenty of time for questions um we will now um please do enter your questions into the chat and uh we will presented shared with the speakers um one question i have just to sort of get started is um regarding question for naomi would you mind reflecting on the quality of the quality of the jobs that technological displacement creates he said the automation transforms jobs and may lead to employment growth what types of jobs would it be for the workers for example algorithmic management could be considered a form of automation it transforms the way the way that tasks are performed that doesn't mean that workers working conditions or occupational safety and health conditions are any better in particular for low-skilled workers what would be their new reality with the next job displacement that we're facing with automation um thank you for your question that's a very good question i think you know shannon pointed out the fact that we don't have enough data at this point to really have a good grip on what kinds of skills are being required in the workplace and what kinds of skills we need to give people for these new jobs um i mean there there's as i i talked about there's the promise of technology to make things better for people and whether or not that's implemented is i think a matter of employees or employers it could be a regulatory matter it could be other kinds of um things that uh allow the the sorts of um the kinds of jobs um to be created that would be better jobs for workers um i don't i'll leave it at that thank you very much um let's see i i i i'll say that the question is a good one because there's concern about uh you know economic polarization where the really high school work work is being um automated the really low still work is being on the middle um the middle gap of uh the economy having sort of a blank because uh because there's you know um discrepancy in the types of work that is being uh automated um we have another question of i think i'll ask this to both of you can you comment on how well the k k through 12 public school kindergarten through 12 system in the us is preparing students for lifelong learning you know i i this is shannon i don't i don't um i don't know the answer to that question um but you know i think in in this country but you know i think that there are some other countries that are certainly doing a better job on their skilling and um preparing their populations for you know effectively um lifelong learning uh and systems and and and you know doing a better job in terms of preparing their populations to sort of thrive in this digital economy you know i think about you know what is being done in countries like belgium or denmark finland um netherlands you hear a lot of times about you know what these countries are doing to get ahead in terms of their skills and their effective lifelong learning systems i don't know that that has sort of caught on in this country i don't know that those investments are being made but certainly you know i think that is the key to the 21st century is providing these lifelong learning accounts or lifelong learning uh systems and i my opinion would be the earlier that that begins uh the better that we are educating the children to take the jobs for the future thank you yeah good point about what other countries are doing and one of the audience members posted a good link to work that is being done documents have been developed in england by the british trade union congress where they have workers at the table and they're developing guidance on having good dignified work and um thinking about the worker experience we'll follow up a little more on that um it's sort of the same type of questions of what kind of skills and training do you think worker safety and health professionals would need to prepare for the disrupt the developing instruction naomi do you have any thoughts on that um yeah i mean certainly they're going to have to um be made aware of the different types of technological changes that are occurring and the potential safety and health risks that they may pose to workers if any or the benefits that they pose to workers and i think some sort of knowledge of what the trends are looking like going into the future yeah and i think we did publish a future work initiative publish a research agenda and also a foundational paper and those really outline the things that we see as needs for the future to fill in the gaps that we have another question is do we know what efforts are underway to establish the means of tracking the mix and the shifts and the needed skills and certification based on online hiring activities so we know from you know online information what's going on in terms of who and what is being hired how does that reflect uh the trends and the gaps that exist do we know anything about that naomi or shannon i mean i think that's something that's missing i think that's something that that needs to be course corrected i think that we need to you know that's what i was sort of getting at in terms of improving the labor market data i think we need to to improve our efforts um because you know unless you can you can identify you know i will go back to the restaurant industry you know a lot of people ended up leaving we do we know where do we can we guess where people went yes but do we know no we do not and you know and you know i think more and more employers are making uh smart investments and i think we are at this really pivotal time now you know to help more people reap the benefits of this digital transformation and really reduce you know further reduce the unemployment and the risk of automation you know really widening the inequities that in inequalities that exist in this country and that are driving unemployment i think we've really got to get out ahead of improving this labor market data and mapping these skills and opportunities for the future thank you and since we were talking about legislation and regulations um how do you see existing labor law specifically bargaining agreements being applied to these new information-centric technologies versus more traditional physical technologies i don't have a comment on that okay uh um let's see i'm gonna see if naomi if you have any comments no pressure just want to check um no i not on that one though great thanks um to follow a little bit on um what uh it was shared regarding the british trade union what suggestions do you have for how to ensure that workers are at the table when we're thinking about technological job displacement um naomi i guess i'll start with you because you know at niagara everything we do we have to try part-time we want workers and employers at the table how do we make sure that workers are engaged and are part of the solution while we're thinking about these things i think that it's important to encourage employers when they're thinking about implementing new types of technology into the workplace to get the workers involved up front to let them know um what kinds of technology that they're considering putting in the workplace and why and then have those workers involved in actually implementing that technology in the workplace figuring out what kinds of skills or upskilling requirements are needed and i i just think it's very important for workers to be involved um from the beginning in those kinds of efforts thank you um we have just a few more minutes left shannon can you explain a little more about the types of activities that the emma coalition is involved in sure so you know as i mentioned we are flexing a major legislative initiative to develop federal legislation that would be introduced in a bipartisan manner to get at what i have been you know talking to you about is improving the labor market data we're also involved with um some of the state chambers on a research project i mentioned uh that's essentially going to serve as a repository of the best of the best practices what some of the states are doing in this area i mentioned washington state they have you know for you know i think they're doing a remarkable job um trying to make these investments and the other thing is i'm going to be a strong advocate for making reforms to wioa when it becomes reauthorized in terms of making sure that you know there's adequate funding going toward some of these things that we mentioned here today and that people are focused on you know the skills gap and members of congress are paying attention to making wise federal investments and actually closing that skills gap and making sure those federal dollars are going to the states in a way that they can use them and you know that are going to ultimately benefit their constituents and the people that are trying to get back into the to the labor force and you know success and rebound from where we have been during this pandemic yeah that's um that'll be really useful and um important um from the office for total worker health and uh you know we talk about having this comprehensive approach to worker safety health and well-being and includes things such as you know having a good organization of work so people have flexible flexibility and control over their own time and schedule but also more comprehensive things such as you know policies that provide you know benefits and fair wages living wages and um people being able to have workers at the at the table so that they're able to play a role in the decision making and um do you see either of you but i could start with and tell me how do you think these types of issues will change with a technological job displacement if if there's a concern about with workers who were losing who are concerned about losing their jobs is this going to make it tougher for workers to get the things that they want to have you know a living wage and have safety at work or would it be the reverse that because there's right now a labor shortage um the workers would actually have more leverage in getting these things that make for safe and healthy working conditions and we do have any thoughts on that um i'm actually um i'm actually going to turn this over to shannon because i think she probably has more thoughts and experience with that question than me so chacha give me the question again please i'm given the labor shortage and the great resignation i guess in essence um what could employers do to remain competitive in this economy as you said you know people are quitting their jobs how could employers ensure that they right well i think you know what you see employers many employers doing today is people are getting competitive on pay people are being competitive on overall compensation including benefits and i also think you see more and more employers being um you know have putting emphasis on flexibility um a lot of hybrid work schedules and a lot of you know it's employee market and employees are demanding the the flexibility the work life balance that you know is so still so badly needed as we you know try to rebound from all of this so i do think you know uh they're getting competitive on wages and overall compensation packages great thank you i'll end with just a couple more questions what are some of the technological changes that the occupational safety and health profession has experienced over the past couple of decades and what lessons do you think we should learn and take from that about future changes i'm sorry um could you repeat that question i didn't quite catch it sure um what changes has the occupational safety and health profession experienced over the last couple two or three decades and how do you think we can apply those experiences and lessons learned when we think about future changes uh uh we could certainly get back to you but but i think um some of the changes have been you know there's increasing awareness of sinking health issues and there's now more data available you know more real-time monitoring of data of you know occupational safety and health conditions and um and i think that could be useful in the future as naomi pointed out one of the benefits of more information is that we can track um better how workers are doing and what's uh what they're facing and that could be a good opportunity going forward in the future we are out of time i want to give a warm thanks to naomi and shannon for your thoughtful presentations and to kiana harper for logistical support and all of our attendees for joining the nash future work webinar please do visit our website to stay up to date on our activities and thank you again i hope everyone has a good safe and healthy few weeks until our next webinar thank you
2022-04-22 08:09
