Popular Science: How to block out digital distractions and get work done. “Working from home is a blessing and a curse—you get the freedom to work how you want, but the temptation to slack off is strong. It’s easy to stick to your job when your boss is breathing down your neck, but at home, even the best noise-canceling headphones won’t keep you from doomscrolling through news 15 times an hour. If you need to buckle down, you need a digital workspace that’s conducive to focus.”
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CNET: How COVID-19 is impacting jobs in the tech industry
CNET: How COVID-19 is impacting jobs in the tech industry. “COVID-19 has caused widespread economic damage to the tech sector, Indeed said in a report released Thursday. There are fewer tech job postings due to the coronavirus pandemic, while more people have been searching in the field, according to the job search website. Indeed, which looked through 564 tech-related job titles for the report, found data science was the hardest hit, with up to 51% fewer jobs advertised compared to a year ago for this role. Next was IT management, security and quality assurance, software development, system engineering, and IT operations and help desk.”
Crain’s Detroit Business: New digital hub to help Michigan workers displaced by pandemic boost skills
Crain’s Detroit Business: New digital hub to help Michigan workers displaced by pandemic boost skills. “A new digital hub offers online learning opportunities and other training resources for Michigan residents looking to return to work or learn new skills. The coronavirus crisis has created record unemployment in Michigan and across the country. The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity says workers who possess advanced skills will be better positioned to get and keep higher-paying and more stable jobs.”
Deseret News: New tool aims to connect out-of-work Utahns to job training from colleges, companies
Deseret News: New tool aims to connect out-of-work Utahns to job training from colleges, companies. “A new online tool seeks to help Utahns who lost their jobs in the pandemic connect to training that could help them find work in sectors that are hiring, like technology, manufacturing and health care. Colleges in Utah have long offered certificate and training programs. But the business and education leaders behind the SkillUpUtah initiative say they created a one-stop shop for job seekers to browse those programs and others from companies like LinkedIn and Pluralsight.”
MIT Technology Review: An AI hiring firm says it can predict job hopping based on your interviews
MIT Technology Review: An AI hiring firm says it can predict job hopping based on your interviews. “As we’ve written before, the idea of ‘bias-free’ algorithms is highly misleading. But PredictiveHire’s latest research is troubling for a different reason. It is focused on building a new machine-learning model that seeks to predict a candidate’s likelihood of job hopping, the practice of changing jobs more frequently than an employer desires. The work follows the company’s recent peer-reviewed research that looked at how open-ended interview questions correlate with personality (in and of itself a highly contested practice).”
CNBC: Retail workforce could face permanent decline as companies take blow from pandemic, lockdowns
CNBC: Retail workforce could face permanent decline as companies take blow from pandemic, lockdowns. “More than one in four American jobs were supported by the retail industry before the Covid-19 crisis hit the U.S., according to the National Retail Federation. That made retail the largest private sector-employer in the country. (That number includes people who work directly for a retailer, like at an apparel store, warehouse or coffee shop. It also includes jobs created by the industry, such as construction workers building a mall.)”
COVID-19 Diagnostics Commons: A data-driven collaboration (Arizona State University)
Arizona State University: COVID-19 Diagnostics Commons: A data-driven collaboration. “To help companies safely move their employees back to the workplace, Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions and the World Economic Forum, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, announced on July 27 the COVID-19 Diagnostics Commons — an interactive hub for the global community to access the very latest information about testing options and to share knowledge and practices for safely bringing back and keeping employees in the workplace during the COVID-19 era.
America’s hidden economic crisis: Widespread wage cuts (Politico)
Politico: America’s hidden economic crisis: Widespread wage cuts. “Millions of Americans who managed to hold onto their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic have seen their incomes drop as employers slashed wages and hours to weather what they expected to be a short-term shutdown. Now, with the virus raging and the recession deepening, those cuts that were meant to be temporary could turn permanent — or even pave the way for further layoffs. That could portend deep damage to the labor market and the economy because so many workers who have kept their jobs have less money to spend than a few months ago.”
FedTech Magazine: Government Leaders Offer Telework Info for Workers and Citizens
FedTech Magazine: Government Leaders Offer Telework Info for Workers and Citizens. “Even as the federal government responded to the needs of the nation during the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also had to act as an employer with 4.3 million workers who wanted to know their agency’s plan to protect them from illness or to work remotely. Federal leaders turned to social media to advise citizens and guide employees, who shared the same challenges that the rest of the country faced during the COVID-19 restrictions.”
AP: Number of laid-off workers seeking jobless aid stuck at 1.3M
AP: Number of laid-off workers seeking jobless aid stuck at 1.3M. “The number of laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits remained stuck at 1.3 million last week, an historically high level that indicates many companies are still cutting jobs as the viral outbreak intensifies.”
‘Find something new’: White House-backed ad campaign’s advice to jobless (NBC News)
NBC News: ‘Find something new’: White House-backed ad campaign’s advice to jobless. “A new White House-backed ad campaign aims to encourage people who are unemployed or unhappy in their jobs or careers to go out and ‘find something new.'” Because this is a good time to abandon your employer-provided health insurance if you’re still employed and hey, bonus, if you voluntarily leave your job you don’t qualify for unemployment and government stats look better!
Boston Business Journal: Mass. launches new online site for workplace safety complaints
Boston Business Journal: Mass. launches new online site for workplace safety complaints. “Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday unveiled a new website for residents to report businesses not complying with the state’s health and safety guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic. The website instructs anyone wishing to file a report of non-compliance to contact their local Board of Health. They can also contact the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards with any issues.”
Slate: Employers Are Sick of the Pandemic. Employees Are Paying the Price.
Slate: Employers Are Sick of the Pandemic. Employees Are Paying the Price.. “As an unsettling number of people have started ignoring public health guidance because they’re tired of restricting their behavior, employers too are increasingly relaxing their own practices even though the coronavirus continues to surge in many parts of the country. Employers are embracing the same magical thinking so many individuals are—we’re ready for it to be over, so we’ll just act as if it is—often at great expense to their workers.”
Route Fifty: One-Third of U.S. Workers Want Permanent Remote Work
Route Fifty: One-Third of U.S. Workers Want Permanent Remote Work. “A new Morning Consult survey finds many workers would like to continue working from home after the coronavirus pandemic recedes and some would likely move to a new city or state if remote work becomes permanent.”
New York Times: Is the Five-Day Office Week Over?
New York Times: Is the Five-Day Office Week Over?. “Most American office workers are in no hurry to return to the office full time, even after the coronavirus is under control. But that doesn’t mean they want to work from home forever. The future for them, a variety of new data shows, is likely to be workweeks split between office and home.”
