Spoiler alert: this will be a challenging read for most of us here. Pamela Dow - lifelong career civil servant, formerly Exec Director of the Cabinet Office and now COO of Civic Future, pens a critique of the HR function, connecting its growth with UK’s poor economic performance. Some of this rings true - maybe too much - especially as we begin to understand the nature of social organisation as ultimately a competition for status and resources. Whether you are pro or anti-HR, this is worth your read. H/T to brainfooders Alexandra Depledge and Andrea Kirby for the share.
Harry Stebbins is probably the best podcaster the UK currently has - capable of securing the smartest guests, and capable of asking questions which gets that intelligence out for us to enjoy. Here he is with philosopher Alain De Botton on how status competition is destroying mental well being.
This post is an example of the value of ‘asking stupid questions’. UK’s industrial policy green paper on up levelling economically unproductive cities might have missed an essential point - what exactly is a city? Productivity numbers would look different if we gerrymandered the geography - and maybe we should. Bit of a mind bender but definitely brainfood.
Perhaps the greatest immediate impact Trump 2.0 is going to have on the sector is mass firings of the public sector workforce. The announcement that Elon Musk - along with Vivek Ramaswamy - has been appointed the 'Department of Government Efficiency’ augurs ill for the 20+ million workers currently on the government payroll. Lyn Alden provides a breakdown on who these workers are, where in the government structure they operate and how much money would be ‘saved’ if they were all fired, and contextualises it on where the federal budget is currently distributed.
I remember doing a big survey of global recruiters in 2017 and one of the most notable findings was how the recruiters in India reported different challenges to those of everywhere else. It was not finding candidates that was issue, but assessing and verifying them. India has always had a candidate surplus and the challenge is continuing for the youth of today. Great documentary on the issue - I’m beginning to think we have a global crisis on the graduate job market…
The Electric Viking has become one of the most compulsive channels on YouTube tracking the EV market. Car manufacturing is one of the keystone industries which directly and indirectly employer millions of workers worldwide. Failure to avoid incumbents dilemma spells huge trouble for Germany, which faces its own Kodak moment at national scale.
What is the state of the graduate job market these days? My conversations in the UK tell me that young people are having one of the most challenging job markets in recent times, with huge competition for fewer jobs, increased assessment load and slower decision making. Global phenomena it seems, as the world wrestles with transformation.
Speaking of demographic crisis, here’s some research which will challenge our priors. What is the relationship between proximity of Cobalt mining with fertility rate? Turns out, villages which are closer to the mines have more children than those which don’t, leading us to the initially disturbing but then quite obvious explanation that the sooner you can convert a child from an economic liability to an economic asset, the more you’re going to have more of them. Farmers have always known this but something we in post-industrial society seem to have forgotten. Not all brainfood is easy chewing…
Emigration is something both the top (privileged) and bottom (precarious) of society tend to do. We’re not able to distinguish between the motivations of the people who searched for relocation options in this research, but it nevertheless provides some interesting visuals on the relative attractiveness of countries based on google search. Japan, in particular, might have a chance of reversing demographic decline based on this data.
Illegal immigration is likely to be one of the most important topics in the US Presidential election in November but the arguments from both parties ignores the most salient fact: US economy needs illegal workers, performing in the essential jobs (remember them?) in agriculture, food processing, logistics, warehousing, sanitation and the rest. Like the war on drugs, immigration hysteria ignores root cause of the phenomena - US demand for what it then perceives to be a problem. This post is an important corrective
After 17 years out of government, the minimum we can expect the Labour government to do is a package of reforms to support employees vs employers. We talked about this in Brainfood Live last month, but legislation is now here. BBC report has an accessible summary - the case for hiring is inevitably going to be a slow down as employers wait to figure out exactly what the changes will mean - minimum we in TA / HR can do is help accelerate this process. H/T to brainfooder Colin McNicol for the share in the online community
Fun history of the rise of tech - from inauspicious beginnings as the uncool basement dwelling stereotypes to the height of the SaaS boom when everyone was learning how to code. What next for tech? Worth a watch
It pays to be committed to new energy transition. Not only do you increase energy security and reduce energy input costs but also create new industries which employ millions of workers. The failure of Northvolt is an example of price paid by being an uncommitted laggard - the workforce hasn’t been trained so isn’t available to do the work - leading to high costs and plant failure. Got to learn some lessons here, opportunities are there for the far sighted countries who can execute a plan. Download the full report here
Interesting post from McKinsey, mainly for the selection of the 15 key technology trends identified, most of which are identifiably concerned with new productive forces from which the foundations of the next economy will be built. Includes job posting data (tho from McKinsey ‘proprietary research’), which nevertheless might give us recruiters some ideas as to which sectors have strong hiring needs in near future. Worth a read.
It’s been a privilege to have brainfooder Tony Wilson on Brainfood Live - he’s one of the most respected commentators on the future of work in the UK context. His foundation, Institute of Employment Studies, outlines recommendations for the government on how to help the country increase its labour force participation rate. Bit wonkish, but important one for UK readers here.
Is this an example of ‘whole-of-society’ mobilisation to fix the job market? Employers who need to workers, connected to workers who need jobs, by a 3rd party - this time, a food delivery service. Who knows how helpful this might be but the spiritual uplift of a single person getting a job this way might overwhelm any ROI considerations. Interesting example of corporate collaboration. H/T to brainfooder Bas van de Haterd for the share in the online community. 10. Working for the Future 2024
It’s been a privilege to have brainfooder Tony Wilson on Brainfood Live - he’s one of the most respected commentators on the future of work in the UK context. His foundation, Institute of Employment Studies, outlines recommendations for the government on how to help the country increase its labour force participation rate. Bit wonkish, but important one for UK readers here.
China’s ridiculously early retirement (50 for women, 60 for men) ages get revised upward, as the country rebalances against a declining working population. Some interesting tidbits from this: women’s retirement age is further split according to type of work (earlier for blue collar manual), as well as the mandatory nature of retirement often being used by corps to exit more expensive managers in favour of younger, cheaper up and comers. I had a great conversation with brainfooder Anne-Marie McCaughan on Brainfood Tribune on this - reach out to AM if you want insight on China hiring.
The US is experiencing an immigration boom, with as many as 9 million people arriving to the country since 2020. Fascinating breakdown from the WSJ on how these people arrived, what qualifications they have and what work they tend to do. The economy of course, needs these people - w/o immigration (legal or otherwise), the US would join the rest of the West with a declining working age population and assured fiscal and demographic crisis.
Urban agglomeration - counter intuitively - may be the hidden cause of demographic crisis. Republic of Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, and also the world’s most dominant capital city relative to the national economy. Got me thinking - maybe a federal system would be the best way to prevent the creation of these ‘superstar’ cities - witness population redistribution in the US for example.
These findings have profound implications for the success of initiatives like the CHIPS Act. The Semiconductor Industry Association (2023) projects a need for 115,000 new semiconductor jobs in the US by 2030. Based on our estimates, it could take approximately 16 years to fill these positions at current graduation rates.
Related to No9 - CHIPS act is massive state intervention by US government to the tune of around $40 Billion of subsidies ($2 billion of which went to Intel who just cut their workforce by 10%…), which needs to go not only into building factories, but also staffing them, which it turns not, is not so easy. Should be a good recruitment business opportunity here - anyone working this domain? Let me know, it will be worth a brainfood live…
It’s well accepted in the developer community that Electrical Engineering is the toughest of the ‘tech’ degrees - part of the reason why graduates are snapped up by finance and software, rather than go to the natural calling into hardware. It’s a misallocation of critical human resources says this UK tech CEO. He’s not wrong, but hard to see what can be done about it. NB: this is a global issue btw software simply offers better pay / benefits / career than hardware, even though the latter is arguably more important.
It’s Patrick Doyle again with his effective yet annoying cadence 🤣. I’m all for worker’s rights, but sometimes unions can negotiate deals which are put the employers into existential risk. Good history on US pension reform, told through the story of automotive, and why the last cohort of boomers find themselves in a very different place compared to their elder siblings.
Anyways, here’s some jobs which perhaps could do with automating away. Some tough stuff here - I suspect the power line worker will be most resilient to automation, topography is going to be make skilled humans cheaper than any robot. What do you think?
I can tell that most of Europe is still on holiday due to the OOO I get from email. - that open rate remains consistent tells me that people are still opening brainfood whilst on the beach 🏖️ 🤣. Summer holidays are serious phenomena for recruiting, whether have you a European team or are hiring European candidates, its significant information to know what the habits are per country, per region. Super interesting post from brainfooder Mariano Mamertino on the imperfect North / South Vacation divide.
There are job scams, then there job scams. The government in Myanmar is currently battling at least 3 civil wars with ethnic separatists, some of whom have created mini-statelets, who finance their efforts by ‘recruiting’ job seekers and training them to send scam texts. Many levels to think about here: (real) fake jobs, human trafficking, volume outbound and the collapse of state authority. An incredible listen. H/T to brainfooder Bas van de Haterd for the share.
Outsourcing providers and recruitment agencies are the ones which know the immigration system best, so have adapted their approach to optimise getting the best value from it. Excellent interactive long read from Bloomberg on how these companies exploit the weaknesses in the system, which I cannot condemn given how inadequate the lottery system for H-1B’s really is. Good read - and a good example of how poorly designed legislation guarantees unwanted outcomes.
Matt Alder with the marvellous Hilda Kabushenga, CEO of The African Talent Company, on demographic crisis, the rise of African labour and what the reality looks like for companies who operate in countries where the working population is already in seemingly irreversible decline. Great listen
The entry of women into the workforce of the market economy is the single most important factor driving economic development at country level. Surging new workers into the economy means cost of employment goes down, new consumers are created, new demands from those consumers leading to new industries servicing those consumers. The price paid down the road is demographic crisis as dual income families struggle to find the time, space or material circumstances to raise future workers, hence need for the short term fix of immigration. Perhaps AI job disruption might turn out to be inadvertent saviour of humanity? I haven’t seen anyone advance this case for techno-optimism so maybe I’ll do it.
I had the pleasure of guesting on brainfooder Felix Mitchell’s excellent podcast, We Need To Talk About HR, and we ended up talking about how formative experience with technology makes generational cohorts a valid taxonomy to analyse the workforce. Great chat, I think - at least the audio quality was great 😊. Have a listen here
Superb essay which asks a rather novel question - can we create ‘shame-free’ unemployment? We enjoy not having to work, hence why we prefer weekends to weekdays, look forward to holidays and in many cases, look forward to retiring from work altogether. And yet the prospect of being permanently unemployed is a huge stressor for almost everyone you might ask. As AI & Automation continue to eat away at once human-only tasks, we need to match the technological innovation with social innovation, in order to create a society where it’s a good thing that the machines are doing the work for us. Great read, with loads of useful references too to research on job satisfaction, free time, job displacement etc.
Demographic crisis is finally making the move from the margins to the mainstream as we collectively begin to understand the fiscal relationship we all have to the state; the ‘pipeline’ of tax payers is on what seems to be an inexorable decline. World In Data keeps count. Positive take: this dovetails with workforce automation and we get the robots to do the work.
It’s that time of year when CEO and Chairpersons write letters to shareholders; last week it was Larry Fink, this week James Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan and Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. It is no exaggeration to say that these US megacorps have more weight in the world that man most countries, and their leaders, likely influence your life more than your local politician might. All worth a read, to see how they see the world, and therefore a decent guide as to what decisions they are going to make. H/T brainfooder Colin McNicol for the share in the online community
Interesting piece of research from Revelio Labs on the impact going to a Liberal Arts College has for future pay. Turns out, they do better than students who went to larger universities. We don’t get any speculation as to why, so we’re left to ruminate on whether it is because of higher skills development due to smaller class sizes, or possibly that students carry advantage in through having more material support from the family.
Delighted to be guest No1 in hackajob’s new podcast / videocast series with brainfooder Sam Berthoud. I’m not sure we answered the question but we had a fun conversation that covered Mad Max, Gemini ‘no white men’ outputs, AI-enabled job candidates and the future of recruiting. Have a watch / listen here
BlackRock - along with fellow mega asset managers Vanguard and State Street - together own equity in over 1600 listed companies in the US - to the value of $20 trillion under management. That makes Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, one of the most powerful people in the world today, wo when he says retirement needs a rethink, time to pay to attention. Full letter to investors here.
Fascinating reconstruction on the working hours of populations over time, with the narrative being that technology has indeed released humanity from overwork, and will increasingly do the tech we add. The analysis omits one hugely significant factor though - the entry of women into the tracked labour force - which may have dispersed the measured labour more evenly across more individuals, rather than concentrating them in male labour vs unmeasured female labour. Anyways, tis interesting with nice interactives too.
Demographic crisis is heading for every country which has undergone the path toward economic development. When societies fail to reproduce, the only alternative is to import new people, or automate the services which would otherwise be performed by human beings. Japan is ahead of everyone in the crisis and their early experiments in automation can now be studied for their efficacy. One major takeaway from the post: automation created more human labour, so in effect dispersed the human effort rather than reducing it. Have a read.
A great deal of the ‘labour market paradox’ can be explained by the changing character of society. This new paper provides a history of the theories which have so far dominated the economics of fertility (quality vs quantity debate etc), and presents a new case that only an economy better shaped in centring rather than marginalising motherhood can hope to reverse the fertility crisis. Academic text, but accessible enough. Download it here
Our collective failure to design / evolve a social system which can truly include all members of society indirectly leads to existential challenges like demographic crisis. We want to have kids, but it costs to have them, with the highest price being paid by the mother who suffers immediate loss of income and a progressively weaker economic outlook with each successive kid. System needs a redesign methinks. H/T to brainfooder Bas van de Haterd for the share.
Three ideas from this short presentation by Azeem Azhar: 1) “technology” means cheaper utility, 2) technology disrupts existing process and 3) markets expand given that its cheaper / better. Last point I think most significant for us recruiters, AI will disrupt, but will ultimately increase market size. 10 minutes, worth a watch.
This interview with Thierry Henry got me thinking about workers for whom absolute focus is a requirement for success or survival - what happens to those folks when that focus is gone? Sports people, military veterans, entrepreneurs, highly focussed people in whichever field need adaptive support. And this is not charity - employers need to tap every field of potential labour as demographic crisis increases intensity YOY. Have a listen.
Transparent TV’s, flexible phones, multi-screen laptops, domestic droids, NEV’s and more in this 10 minute rapid fire round up of the 3 day Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The biggest boys (Apple, Microsoft) tend to stay away but every else was there - fun overview, and good to keep abreast of the technology that is being made for consumers, as we’ve seen consumer led adoption has been the norm since the advent of the smartphone.
I’m involved in not one but two ‘hiring trends in 2024’ based webinars over the next few weeks (sign up to one with Pillar 16th Jan here and then with Pera on the 6th Feb here), so this overview by Korn Ferry comes in handy 🤣. Good to see AI-enabled Job Candidates in at No2, as well as crunch time for relo as employers roll back remote in at No6. What else do you see as major trends for TA in 2024?
I’ve had 20 predictions for recruiting in 2024, this is the essay discussing the first 5 - Employer policy on AI usage by job candidates, chatbot implementations on career pages, record attendance for the events industry and two divergent trends - TA expanding scope to take on traditionally HR work, and senior execs increasingly moving to fractional mode of work. Have a read, let me know what you think.
TED might have lost the cool factor somewhat, but it remains a great archive of interesting monologues, kept digestible by the 17 minute constraint. My favourite of this selection? Probably the conspiracy theory that birds are not real…
It’s been a significant year for Google, mostly for the things its unexpected competitors did in taking up market share which once looked insuperable. Yet despite the significant inroads made by TikTok and OpenAI on information discovery, Google still remain king of search for most of us. Here’s what we searched for 2023. Cool also because of geo-filters, you can check out global vs your own country vs any other country for which Google has sufficient data.
How did we access the Internet in 2023? Cloudflare - perhaps the world’s pre-eminent web security provider - can give us some insight, with this extensive report on web traffic, popular technologies, most visited web sites and so on. Particularly interesting for tech recruiters is the ranking of the programming languages and frameworks, based not on survey but on detection by Cloudflare servers. Very interesting read, as was their earlier post, Ranking Top Internet Services in 2023
Every year I review the newsletters sent in the year just gone and see if I can glean from that what actually happened in our industry over the past twelves months. Irrationally, I publish this in my other newsletter This Week, In Recruiting, as that is where the original essays go. So go have a read on what happened in recruiting in 2023 in three parts Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
Fascinating video on the compensation and benefits for a Roman soldier. No question a tough life but enough similarities with modern wages to resonate with a lot of us here. Especially liked the final 5 minutes, which covered the stories of the few successful retirees and what they did with their money.
Developer orientated Youtube channel on what is going to happen in 2024, taking time time drop acid takes on foreign policy, domestic spyware, employers vs employees debate and why programming frameworks have already peaked in the era of GAI. It’s gallows humour + acute commentary, delivered in high octane style.
One of the more unwelcome trends over the past few years has been the intrusion of geopolitics into the world of work. None of us can afford to be ignorant of the geopolitical macro, so what we need is an at-a-glance dashboard of the geopolitical risks and scenario plan how things might impact our businesses should the predicted outcomes come to pass. 2024 is a multi-election year also, so expect more energy into the chaos - this website from Blackrock is useful, whilst we also bear in mind that investment houses are no passive observers of the events they describe…
…and yet, there is always a counter narrative. European Central Bank with meta analysis of 3 reports on the impact of AI on employment and actually found that employment increased in segments most exposed to AI. Notably this was AI pre-2022, but nevertheless underlines the techno-optimist case that innovation might mean short term disruption but also long term job creation.
Peter Turchin is an academic most famous for developing the idea of cliodynamics, which includes the application of mathematical modelling to history. Amongst his better ideas is the notion that revolutions are mainly intra-elite competitions, which occur when societies ‘overproduce’ elites, who become frustrated aspirants motivated to overturn the system by mobilising the mob. It’s a compelling theory, and in his latest essay, suggests that AI - which is already commoditising elite knowledge work - will bring such revolution closer. Uncomfortable food for thought.
In the past, Reyes recruited workers out of high school and trained them up. But he’s reluctant to do it again. It costs his technicians time, it costs him money, and there’s no guarantee that the people he invests in will stick around because the job market is so competitive.
There is a point where skills shortage becomes a vicious circle, where employers become reluctant to hire-to-train for fear of losing qualified staff to competitors who will just outbid. Fascinating story of the electrician shortage in California, a story replicated across skilled trade everywhere. Great read.
Reinforcement Learning by Human Feedback - RLHF - is one of the core components of Generative Artificial Intelligence. This is basically a lot of humans clicking yes / no on images generated by AI. It is not without its ethical problems, as this sort of ‘click work’ is low paid, monotonous and usually offshored. However, we can also say that for countries and people who take on the work the Global North refuses to do, it can also be a way out of poverty.
There are many explanations for the ‘talent shortage’ but maybe the biggest reason is demographic change, which is accelerating almost all countries toward a high dependency ratio. So every country also seems to be raising the age of retirement, or beginning the discourse of ending it altogether. Your starting point is going to be relevant so this chart from Visual Capitalist on your country compares is going to be useful.
I have been in a mid sized city in the Netherlands for the past 3 days and have direct confirmation of the findings of the 2023 English Language Proficient Index - the Dutch are the best. But where else in the world are good English language speaker? Useful annual report, for anyone who is hiring internationally, remotely or investigating new territories to set up an office.
Viral satire on McKinsey & Co, which is perhaps unfair yet resonant. The selection process, the groupthink, the polish and the status. In the end, it is a critique of prestige, something that we routinely underestimate. Have a laugh - and a think here
“You can actually build large language models around specific ideas…”
We’re all basically using US tech and predominantly US pre-trained data at that - is that a good idea if you want to maintain some kind of national sovereignty? This was a question asked the Tony Blair Institute back in June this year and is an intriguing and important line of thought. Related to item No6 in this newsletter, but scaled out to a higher unit of analysis…
The argument is this: NEV’s are much simpler vehicles to make, with far less components compared to ICE vehicles. Coupled with lower maintenance / upgrade costs, this should mean less workers per car made. This post suggests that the opposite effect may occur, if you take into account all the activities required to make a battery. Strangely thrilling read.
Are you starting to see job candidates use AI in applications? Judging by some of the conversations we’ve seen in the online community and also more publicly on LinkedIn, we certainly seem to be, so this overview of consumer usage of GAI is timely, as it is thorough.
Honoured to be guest on Saatkorn podcast, one of the most popular German language pods in the recruiting and future of work domains. Host Gero Hesse was kind enough to switch to English to accommodate and we managed to get involved a conversation on demographics, values change and digitisation.
Might this be solution to ageing population + youth unemployment? Fascinating vignette from China of the phenomena of families paying their (adult) kids to become home helps. In most cases, these seem to be stop gap solutions before the kid ‘graduates’ but you can imagine that some may well do this as a full time carer career.
Easy listening here, as we brainfooder Neil Carberry and I have a conversation about the state of the market and what recruiters really should be doing about it. So glad Neil is doing a podcast - smart people who ask great questions usually make for great conversational content. Have a listen, here
One way to avoid climate change is to relocate to a more temperate country, especially one which is desperate for your labour, such as the UK. Interesting, the need is highest in many sectors whose importance to the functioning of society is de-coupled from the pay people get for doing the work. As predicted pre-Brexit, UK immigration is on the up, difference is we are sourcing labour from different, non-EU sources.
Does LinkedIn really have ‘great filters?’ I’m sure most of us would instinctively say no, but compared to dating apps, it probably does provide more detailed, relevant information for the dating game - education, professional attainment, status and wealth. TikToker Candilicious has been put on blast last week for ‘mis-using’ the platform to find ‘A-grade men’. Maybe a Brainfood Live topic to explore - is there a right / wrong way to use social media platforms, and if so, who decides this? Let me know in comments if this is worth doing.
Did you know that the cost-per-mile of a personally own vehicle had stayed at $0.70 per mile since the Model-T Ford? The argument from this research piece from Ark Invest (download the PDF here) is that automating transportation will radically reduce this cost, with profound implications for freight, mobility, consumption, safety and time. What might the cumulative productivity gains be if we convert the billions of hours of commute time to actual add value endeavour - or better yet, give it back to the people so they can do non-market stuff like looking after family and building community? Fascinating brainfood. H/T to brainfooder Trevor Vas for the share
Canada’s super aggressive targeting of H1B workers currently working in the US has been one of the most interesting immigration stories in the past few weeks. This is ‘war for talent’ at geopolitical level, with the US doing everything it can to help Canada win it. Brainfooders Serge Boudreau and Ilya Brotzky in conversation
The title is a bit of a misnomer, because this short post from the OECD is really about cross country unemployment rate and real wage growth (or decline). The cost of living crisis is indeed a crisis and pay increases are not keeping pace with the real rate of inflation, especially for those in the public sector. Remember the ‘essential workers’ in the pandemic period? Yes, it is those folks who are suffering the most. Easy read, important read
We need to talk more about demographics, because if we do really care about ‘talent pipeline’ we cannot afford to ignore the absolute numbers of people who might be available to do the work. Economic development seems to correlate precisely with demographic decline, presenting a challenge which is testing the state capacity and political efficacy of different systems of governance. This superb interactive essay from the NYT sets the scene for a debate that needs to be had.
Talking about front line workers, nothing is lower status / lowest pay than migrant workers doing agricultural work. These workers are economically needed yet socially rejected, a contradiction which continues to manifest at the political level in Western style democracies. We have a pretty straight forward choice: take a political risk and change the conservational tone on immigration or find some other way to arrest the demographic crisis.
Germany, despite being the magnet for EU talent, still cannot find enough skilled workers to fulfil the functions in the tangible economy: nurses, construction workers, electricians, plumbers. There is a theory that the Global North has over educated itself, homogenised its labour force and elevated expectations such that work in the tangible economy is no longer considered fit for the natives. How governments respond to this challenge will probably be another line of division in the geopolitics of the near future. 60 second video, easy watch.
One hour documentary by director Ike Nnaebue, who retraces the steps he took as an 18 year old when he left home in Nigeria to an uncertain future in Europe. In the Global North, immigration is all too often a story told from only one side; here’s a vivid chance to see what it is like from the other. It’s great watch from a very decent YouTube channel ran by Deutsche Welle
Technology innovation changes the work that humans do, and switching career paths is going to be something that many of the people we know - perhaps many of us also - might soon need to be thinking about. This article interviewing former teachers who gave it up in search for something better presents the challenge and dilemma in very real way. Not sure what lessons we can draw from it, but surely ‘career agility’ is something we all have to cultivate. Have a read and think
Economics Explained is one of the many YouTube channels which aims to condense complex topics into digestible shorts which is more accessible to the mainstream audience. There are risks with this approach of course, but there is great value also. This one, on a concept of an over educated population is timely, relevant..and maybe right
Those who didn’t read Ted Chiang’s essay Will AI Become the New McKinsey really should, because it re-introduces a question we should’ve have never stopped asking - why does labour saving technology not actually lead to any labour being saved? The Keynesian vision of 15 hour work weeks seems farther away than ever, even as it is perhaps the most welcome outcome for AI disintermediation. Important essay on the what the future looks like for the generation entering work in 2023
The conspicuous success of tech leaders of India origin has rightly been a source of pride and celebration in home country and in the diaspora. However, it can also be seen as a damaging brain drain for the local economy. This academic paper analyses the historical academic performance of graduates from leading Indian Universities and uses LinkedIn to find where they have ended up. Amongst the top 1000 scorers, 36% took their talent outside of India; of the top 100, 68% of them left home to pursue opportunities abroad. Freedom of movement, or another form of colonial extraction? Brainfood for sure…
“It’s churn,” he said. Those red states weren’t creating jobs faster. They were just hiring more often because folks were bouncing around more. Red states don’t have more layoffs or job openings than blue ones, they just have more quits and hires.
I should imagine there might also be significant sectoral differences also - plenty of lumberjacks in Alaska, not so much in New York / New Jersey. Fascinating dive into some labour market economics in the US.
Asianometry is an incredible YouTube channel, made by one guy, who interesting angles on tech, industry and society to do 20 minute in depth investigations on. This week, it’s Singapore’s solution to the pension crisis - tax the kids to pay for the parents. Not as crazy as you might think.
Superb essay from one of the superb-est essayists of our modern times, Ted Chiang. A sci-fi writer by trade, Chiang applies his imaginative prowess to true purpose of technology, and whether it is inevitable that AI will follow the trend of technology innovation being aligned to capital (help corps make more profit) or aligned to the people (help humanity thrive by reducing workload). I think we are probably all pessimists on this view, but like Chiang, we need to imagine a better possible future. It’s a brilliant essay, I recommend you read it.
Rare for brainfood to reach deep into ancient history but this post from 2017 provides a compelling argument for why AI and roboticisation will indeed mean loss of jobs - our standard accounting rules makes de-humanisation an obvious decision for business owners to make. Fascinating, portentous essay.
Another factor has to be the entrepreneurial opportunities opened up for those very same engineers; productivity gains offered by Generative AI means that more will indeed be done with less, and that will reduce the size and change the shape of new tech companies starting up today. Outstanding essay sketching what this near future might look like.
Preventing or reversing early retirement is implicit goal of governments suffering from a shortage of workers - and therefore tax payers. This deeply personal account of a recent retiree forced to return to the labour market describes the emotional journey that many of the recently retired might have to undertake as cost of living rise and the value of investment falls. An outstanding essay written with humour, humility and poignancy.
Does higher education have a future? It’s a critical debate even pre-ChatGPT, but even more acute in the days when knowledge learning and transfer can now be almost entirely delegated to AI. Universities make the case in this conversation - Nick Dirks, President of the New York Academy of Sciences leading the way
Welcome corrective of groupthink from brainfooder Andrew Spence, who contextualises the priorities dominating the discourse on the Global North with 5 charts which illustrate how much bigger the world of work is outside of said bubble. As the world continues to economically rebalance from the distortions created by the devastation of WW2, we need to better understand what is recruitment and HR challenges of the Global South. Have a read
Can remote work be the solution to the demographic crisis? Turns out, the completely-expected-outcome-in-hindsight of spending more time with your partner, through neither of you having to commute to the office, means having more sex and making more babies. The great social experiment of forced shift to remote is now literally bearing fruit, but please do note it is the professional class with jobs which are remotable, who are ones having the mini baby boom.
Fascinating article breaking down the demographics of the 220,604 corporate recruiters in the United States. Some key findings: the profession is becoming feminised and more ethnically diverse over time, tenure is averaging out at 18 months per job and unemployment rate rising and currently at 3.8%…. dig into it folks
….but it will not be uncontested. Bill Gates’s positive vision is outlined in this essay (particularly interesting for us is the near future arrival of ‘personal copilots’ trained on your own email, calendar, social network, document data) whilst others are now publicly advocating a moratorium on future releases in the Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter, to which further contestants spin the geopolitical risk of pausing and falling behind, to which yet further contestants suggest pre-emptive nuclear strikes as a solution to those who won’t stop. Italy have unexpectedly taken a lead - banning ChatGPT on what look like GDPR violations. Who knows where we will end up? The world doesn’t agree, which is the expected outcome of in the early days of a new era.
LinkedIn have a strange position when it comes to professional data - with 800 million user profiles they are one of the few organisations which can credibly commentate on skills change, yet the data quality is dependent on user input and update, meaning we only know as much as what people are prepared or interested in saying. Bearing this mind, the Future of Skills analysis here can be best understood at sector level, where the rate of change is a reasonable measure of the dynamism in that industry. H/T to brainfooder Denys Dinkevych for the share.
Emmanuel Macron’s difficult decision to raise the pension age in France has led to some of the most serious disturbances we have seen in Europe since the Yellow Vest movement of 2018. It’s a worrying precursor for all aging societies, each of whom will be looking to conduct similar politically unpopular manoeuvres as demographic decline reduces the tax base and exacerbates the dependency ratio. Some data here on where different European countries are at on pension age, by country and by gender.
Tim Urban is the man behind one of the most remarkable artefacts of the Internet age, the amazing website Wait But Why which tells the story of human decision making in charming graphical form. He’s got a book out - What’s Our Problem - A Self Help Book for Societies, which I’m going to buy sight unseen. Here’s his interview on the Lex Fridmann podcast, sharing it having not heard it because I’m that sure it will be worth it.
What do the labour market paradox, the immigration debate, development economics and workers fiscal relationship with the state have in common? They are all manifestations of the state of demographics. As the late Hans Rosling famously demonstrated in a series of thrilling talks in the 00’s, economic development at country level is closely correlated female education, the rise of which increases the labour force participation rate and decreases the fertility rate. The problem we are encountering now is….have we created a circumstance where it is economically irrational to have children? With two income households are often now no longer enough to maintain a family in middle class lifestyle, every economically advanced country is experiencing declining birthrate, exacerbating the age dependency ratio with every year. Are robots are the answer? More immigration? Fairer society for mothers? Don’t know but we got to talk about it. H/T to brainfooder Jacob Sten Madsen for the share in the online community
Real pleasure to be speaking with brainfooder Chris Abbass on his podcast series, Hiring on all Cylinders. It’s a review and predictions post folks, so we get into it with ChatGPT, community based sourcing, tech recession and the rest. Fun conversation - have a listen!
Any excuse to promote Derren Brown, I’m generally going to do it 🤣. Few people have mainstreamed the discipline of ‘mentalism’ better than this guy and he is living example of the power of the mind to accomplish incredible feats of influence and manipulation. Yes it is dangerous, and yes it could be misused - but it is an education as to how susceptible we are to those who know how to push our buttons. Be smart on your informational diet folks, especially if balloons are in the air.
2 years after the ‘labour market paradox’ of the missing millions of workers has first coined, I think we are getting a better idea as to an explanation. Like any complex phenomena, there are multiple reasons for why labour force participation is low, but the leading contenders seem to be directly Covid (deaths, long term illness), elevated candidate expectations and, according to this intriguing research, early retirement due to rising house prices which workers use as pension.
Robin Dunbar - perhaps most famous for the ‘Dunbar number’ - on this super interesting podcast on the positive use of alcohol consumption by humans and primates. Reason why alcohol is socially important? It reliably triggers the endorphin systems which is the bio-chemical root of social bonding. We all know this, but sometimes it helps to have scientists explain it….have a listen
One of the annual classic reports, Edelman’s Trust Barometer is a must read because of its laser focus massive scale, robust and transparent methodology and relentless consistency over time. What do people in your country think of it’s institutions, do they trust government or media, what do they think businesses should be responsible for? Your CEO will have read this, so it makes sense for you to do so too. Website here, download the PDF here.
Need a plumber, electrician, roofer to come round? 6 week waiting list for you sir, and that’s if they can remember. The shortage of skilled tradespeople is set to grow more acute with this report from NPR which suggests that Gen Z has little interest in doing the sort hands on, skilled work that needs to be done. Complete with incredible thread from actual tradesmen talking the talk, and presenting some hard truths as to why they understand.
Saxo’s outrageous predictions are always the most fun. Lets properly stick our neck out and say what needs to be said 🤣. Exactly none of these predictions are going to come to pass but being accurate isn’t the point of this exercise, its about speculating long into the future and extrapolating observable trends today into who could happen in 10 years time. Fun read, one of to think about, especially for the long term futurists / disaster preppers / investment managers amongst us.
LinkedIn asked some UK ‘top voices’ to make some bold predictions, and I’m pleased to say that the result contains more brainfood rather than cliché 🤣. You are not going to agree with every forecast (shopping goes physical?) but you’ll discover a few you might have not thought about before. Agree on menopause and women’s sports becoming big business in 2023. Have a read folks, especially UK readers
Has Levels.fyi been the website of the year? I think for tech recruiters it is certainly up there, keeping us up to date with the latest movements in the tech market, breaking lay off news, aggregating talent directories and providing career pathing / compensation data. Here’s the annual end of year report, download it here, read it here.
With the news that ChatGPT has been flagged internally as a ‘code red’ risk to Google, the relevancy of these ‘year in search’ reports may be starting what maybe become a sudden decline. Still, we recruiters are still primarily retrievers of information rather than generators of it, so website is still a fun way to understand what happened in the world in 2022. Country filter is useful, though sadly unreasonably incomplete.
Every year I try to write a review of the year in recruitment. The methodology consists of me reviewing every newsletter sent since the start of the year, looking for recurring themes, stories which appear more than once, which I take a signal of significance that something might be happening. From this entirely unscientific approach, I’ve pulled together 20 themes, which I listed here, and discuss in 3 essays in the Open Kitchen segment of This Week, In Recruiting - Part 1, Part2 already published and Part 3, coming out tomorrow - hope you find them of the some use!
The Labour Market Paradox has been one of the core themes of the pandemic era, with many millions of workers no longer participating in the measured market economy. Aside from the folks who may be long term ill or looking after those who are, there is also a significant cohort of prime age men, who seem not to be working. Why, what does this mean, is this a problem and if so, what do we need to do about it? Plenty of food for thought in this conversation. H/T to brainfooder Cátia Sousa for the share.
We need to change the language when it comes to migration. The economic health of a society is a function of the ratio of people working and paying tax vs people not working and in need of services. Every country in the ‘global north’ is facing in imminent crisis by having too few of the former supporting too many of the latter. Without increasing birthrate, we need to be increasing immigration. BCG and brainfooder Johan Harnoss with the business case for migration. One to download folks.
These collections from LinkedIn are always really good - with the measure being how free it is from cliché. There are some great ideas here, at least a dozen directly relevant to us in recruiting and HR, and a dozen more which are adjacent to our work. My favourite? Got to be the one where we will be wearing mushrooms…
Interesting perspective on the dehumanising impact of technology, particularly in our addiction to the phones. How do we refocus, on the thing we want to do, and with the people who we are with? The additional important insight is the idea that being distracted by technology also means being closed to opportunities you did not plan for. You need some emptiness in your life folks Really good listen.
Interesting piece of research from retirements business Phoenix Group, who polled 3000 over 50’s individuals from UK, Germany and USA on their labour force participation. Granted, we know the business agenda here, but an intriguing line of thought on the relationship between home ownership + lower labour force participation rate; people who own their homes, retire earlier than those who rent.
Ah, the value of mandatory military service - you can just use it to conscript civilians to do other work, such as maintaining security of what might still be the biggest single sporting event in the world, the World Cup. It’s interesting to speculate what conditions it would take for the state to suspend freedom of labour and take over its allocation. We all believe we’re free, until we’re not.
Most of the great reports have already been released for 2022, but I think I might have missed this one from PwC earlier in the year. Worth an overview now, especially as I think the responses were collected before the cost-of-living crisis. So two things really - how the dynamism of a hostile de-globalising world rapidly dates survey response data, and whether we can really find a better way of getting real time sentiment without a poll. Have a read.
Cost of living crisis + rise of the creator and gig economies is going to fundamentally change the relationship the next generation of workers have their ‘employers’. Smart companies are going to be ones who will be able to not only accommodate but actively facilitate revenue generating side hustles for their nominal employees. Lots to think about, in this Deloitte survey.
Elon Musk close his overpriced acquisition of Twitter last week, immediately firing the CEO, CFO and Head of Safety, to signal a clear change in direction. The employees of course, have already voiced their opinion, making a list of demands via on Open Letter, copy of which I pasted into a doc. Twitter - appropriately enough - is alive with criticism, support and debate. Prominent public example of boss vs worker conflict, one of the recurring motifs of the world of work in the pandemic era.
Cost of living crisis + rise of the creator and gig economies is going to fundamentally change the relationship the next generation of workers have their ‘employers’. Smart companies are going to be ones who will be able to not only accommodate but actively facilitate revenue generating side hustles for their nominal employees. Lots to think about, in this Deloitte survey.
Elon Musk close his overpriced acquisition of Twitter last week, immediately firing the CEO, CFO and Head of Safety, to signal a clear change in direction. The employees of course, have already voiced their opinion, making a list of demands via on Open Letter, copy of which I pasted into a doc. Twitter - appropriately enough - is alive with criticism, support and debate. Prominent public example of boss vs worker conflict, one of the recurring motifs of the world of work in the pandemic era.
Talk about candidate shortage is fundamentally premised on the idea that it is a fixable or cyclical problem. But what if the issue is a manifestation of longer term problem - irreversible population decline? It’s an iron rule of population dynamics that as a country develops economically, so that country slows down its birthrate. The direction of causality isn’t clear but the correlation is consistent. Is the unthinkable the answer? Don’t see why not tbh
Got no candidates? Maybe more of them are on long term sickness or looking after those who are. Latest research from the Health Foundation claims that from the 700,000 more people in the UK are economically inactive now than before the pandemic, at least 200,000 cite long term illness as the cause. Turns out, ‘letting it rip’ has long term consequences.
So this fellow has found a way to track phone location data over time to figure out how workers in different countries take holidays. European countries conspicuously take August off, US equally conspicuously don’t at all. Fascinating research, twitter thread here, full video here
With the welcome news last week that the EU has moved to ban products made from forced labour, it is worth having a look at why forced labour happens at all. Unsurprisingly, its usually labour exploitation for profit maximisation. Some sobering figures here with cameo portraits of prisoners earning a pittance for themselves, whilst the fruits of labour hit the free market. Have a read of the Prison Money Diaries.
We’ve already hit the backlash against the concept of ‘quiet quitting’ with even the FT now proclaiming that it’s ok for workers to simply do their job and nothing more. I get the feeling that there may be more to the phenomenon though, it’s a kind of middle class fatalism brought about escalating cost of living crisis which perhaps the working class had always known about…..another topic for an Open Kitchen essay I suspect….
Companion piece to the above report, this one from the Institute of Fiscal Studies uses data from the UK, and conclude along similar lines - long covid might be permanently removing people from the workforce, at least for the jobs they once did. Some ideas on what to do, mainly stem from reallocating to other work with different physical / mental demands. Accessible, important read.
Even as tech lay offs dominate the headlines, we simultaneously have a persistent candidate shortage in many areas of the economy, and long term illness maybe a more significant factor than we realise. US data, but I suspect the distribution of long covid to be more prevalent in particular sectors of the economy, would follow the same pattern in other countries.
Zuckerberg noticed that it was getting harder to get all the employees to attend a meeting as they were sometimes taking time out in a day for personal work…
A great deal of our love for remote is due to the rebalancing of work / life that it provides. My argument that this could be fairly described as ‘doing less work’ has been criticised in-community but surely this is just restating what ‘rebalancing’ is. Bosses don’t like it, especially live players like the CEO’s of Meta and Alphabet. HN with a conversation thread which discernibly splits along individual contributor vs manager lines. It’s a form of (middle) class war folks.
If the social network era is indeed coming to end, we will do well to mine what value we can from them. Social Capital Atlas is one such effort - data mining 21 Billion connections to try and find correlations between friendship density, location and income distribution. The findings? The income level of your friends has an impact on your own level of income. PDF here, but the website is a superb interactive experience, worth diving into.
Skip to the discussion if you want to get to the conclusions. Political bifurcation now seemingly discernible across state lines also, with not only a migration of talent to places more aligned to your politics but also a retrenchment of those politics by the leaders of your businesses, leading to perhaps the incredible outcome different types of company cultures, in different states in what is increasingly becoming, the disunited States of America.
Even asking the question feels tense but we have to do it because as far as I can tell there is no guidance on how to do this. ‘Culture war’ is a conflict of values, and values are human artefacts do not have external reality from human culture. Should employers stay neutral then? Brainfooder Jim Stroud with context and argument to make the case.
Highly paid people tend to see themselves as “normal” on the income scale – and “worse off” than their social circle.
Fascinating observation on the relative nature of wealth - it’s all about where you stand and who we hang around with. I suspect salary transparency / growth of compensation tech will go some way towards helping us better understand the (in)justice of our pay grade, but it might equally just increase our sense of entitlement.
It is the same pattern throughout all the East Asian tigers….an economic miracle to get out of grinding poverty, but which required a massive society wide commitment to very hard work. Have a watch
How do we consume the news? We have never had more news than today, and our relationship with it can be intense, emotional and probably unhealthy. Massive report from Reuters on where we are at in 2022, cross country analysis. One to download and refer to as we go.
Unusually personal interview with Marc Andreesen, unquestionably one of the live players in the world today, in conversation with Tyler Cowen. They both speak 1.5 x faster than normal human beings so this was a fun, staccato ride.
Slave labour alive and well in the US, though now rebranded as rehabilitation for the incarcerated. It’s a billion dollar business. Did you know that 2 out of every 3 prisoners were put to work in the production of often mandatory items (i.e license plates). Stunning piece of research into an unacceptable part of the US economy. And here is a list of everyday items made by US prisoners, which might surprise you.
Report from ADP attempting to give global coverage on the topic of people’s attitude to work. Dataset is big enough (32,000+) but the cohorts are way too broad - Australia and Indonesia are vastly different countries yet are grouped together as “Asia-Pacific”. Needs to be minimum country-by-country analysis on this. Anyways, here it is anyway, you might get something from it.
The problem we have with ‘good work’ is that a) what constitutes it is different for different people and b) plans to get there are too often predicated on an industrialised era idea of social justice. Some useful ideas in this CTA from World Economic Forum but could do with an update on those two points.
IBM fired all of its Russian employees last week. The geopolitical risk of a ‘remote anywhere’ policy - or even any multi-national policy - has been laid bare in the ongoing catastrophe that is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is the official update post, a sobering read.
News media is dominated by negativity bias and whilst we cannot pretend there are no bad things happening in the world, we also need to remember the many good things that are happening at the same time, and give some thought as to why these are under-reported, under observed and under discussed. Erik Torenberg with a much needed validation of humanity. Must read folks - get some balance as to where we are as a species.
Carlota Perez is one of the foremost economic historians (and therefore an accidental workforce futurist…) writing these days and brainfooder Andrew Spence does an excellent job of summarising her key thesis - that breakthrough technologies predictably generate socio-economic change in a cyclical manner. Carlota is a must read, as is Andrew, read this and follow both.
Massively counterintuitive findings, which are potentially triggering, but well worth investigating further. In summary: women who out-earn their husbands, change behaviour to do more (not less!) housework in order to re-affirm commitment to prescribed conjugal roles, challenged by this new earning disparity. Study here, and BBC Worklife again with an outstanding post on the same report. love to know your thoughts on this, maybe worth a brainfood live.
Employment law is changing all over the US, and for the most part, the direction of travel is increasing worker protections. That most of the these laws are happening at state rather than federal level can make it confusing even for US brainfooders to navigate, hence why this website comes in super handy.
Magnificent essay on the ‘history of burnout’. OP reviews the literature on the topic and summarises the key tomes which connect the emergence of the condition as an available diagnosis with socio-economic trends of the post-war economy. It’s a wonderful read for anyone interested in sociology, economic history and the mythology of work and identity.
Perhaps the most useful use case for online gaming is social experimentation in a safe environment. Create the world, set some incentives and trade offs and let the users tell you what is going to be happen. Great story coming out of China, here
Fascinating research on the migration of tech workers following the pandemic and shift to remote. Superstars cities are not in decline but growth rate has slowed, as tech workers look elsewhere to live and work from. They are not diffusing evenly through out US though but clustering again in better-quality-of-life cities. A pattern we can expect globally? Essential read
This post is now one year old but I’ve only just come across it now and found it as fresh and relevant as if it were published yesterday. Particularly like the intriguing idea that the economy is becoming communal - perhaps it was ever thus, and the individual gratification era was always a poor substitute for human connection?
The fundamental weirdness of organisation of US sports occasionally produces outcomes like this - players unionising in a country that has been conventionally anti-union, and consequently, player strikes where entire seasons might not take place due to pay disputes. It’s a fascinating microcosm - have a listen here. H/T to brainfooder Bas van de Haterd for the share
Being ‘on-trend’ is probably more important than being good at what you do. It simply gives you a better chance of success, whilst reducing the chances of failure. Brainfooder Steph Smith with another one of her superb threads on the generation defining trends of today. Steph is a must follow on twitter btw.
I have been trying to find a way to highlight the most promising initiatives that have been launched to help the people impacted by the war in Ukraine. Most of these are going to be attached to the pinned thread in the fb group. This one was included also, given that directly speaks to the brainfood audience. Can you hire someone who has been displaced by conflict? Post your job here and Imagine will match it to someone who needs it.
Old globalisation - free movement of capital, restricted movement of labour.
New globalisation - free movement of labour, restricted movement of capital
Radical analysis as usual from Branko Milanovic who refuses the possibility of a conventional take but that is why is voice is so valuable in these days of churn. Have a read if you want to zoom out a little.
The nature of globalisation over the past 3 decades has meant the internationalisation of the workforce for many organisations, something the shift to remote is meant to accelerate. Yet if the world does spiral into greater conflict, we’re going to have to handle the fallout at the company level. Does anyone know how to do this? Rhetorical question -because nobody does. Gergely again with the chat, this fellow is must follow btw
The 4 Day week is starting to happen folks and intuitively to me, this seems like a great idea! Some people have thought deeper about it though, and raise some relevant concerns which might serve to cool down any over enthusiasm. Brainfooder Andrew Spence is one such, and he puts his argument down here in this thought provoking post.
Great thread from Tony Wilson of Institute of Employment Studies, summarising latest report on Labour Market Statistics. Twitter threading makes these otherwise turgid reports far more accessible. Main points here are a) lots of people are not active in the visible labour market b) long term illness a significant factor in reducing LFP. Have a read here, and Tony is great follow on Twitter if you like this sort of stuff
Sober reading, but essential for us to understand the choices we are confronted with as we renegotiate our relationship with work. Published first in Sept 2021, this post retains relevance as we continue to puzzle over the ‘missing millions’ from the labour force. Those who cannot easily find a way back, have to do something. This is what it might be.
Really interesting report from Bain & Co, exploring the changing motivations of the workforce. Includes some fun worker archetypes, accessible demographic, regional and income analysis of those archetypes. It’s great brainfood. Download it here. H/T brainfooder Colin Donnery for the share.
UK data from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, this 1 hour presentation is a very decent overview of how jobs, wealth and economic prospects are distributed throughout the UK, with some obvious implications for candidate sourcing / talent attraction.
Is the Great Resignation a trial balloon for a much bigger problem…..actually running out of people? It’s an iron law of socio-economics that with economic development comes population decline - and it is inevitable that this becomes a recruiting problem. With democratic societies polarised by the caustic immigration debate, bringing in foreign workers is no longer the politically viable path it has been. I have no idea what to do about this (hiring the retired like Japan, keep pushing back the idea of retiring altogether like the UK?) but, as OP says, we do have to start talking about it.
Fascinating conversation with Edward Glaeser, an expert on urban economics and co-author of the book Survival of the City. An optimistic take on the resilience of the city, and why great cities will rebound back from Covid-19. Great listen folks.
Pretty much the definitive report for the mobile landscape in 2022. Expertly designed, each page (there’s 73) is self contained with high enough information density to have stand alone value. Obviously not recruiting specific but if you care about how people - especially Gen Z - are connecting and talking with each other, this is an essential read.
WEF with their annual Global Risk Report. It’s all relevant to us, but especially for entrepreneurs who need to think strategically as well as operationally. Its 100 pager, but scannable and some obvious parts which directly apply to us (i.e chapter on migration). Download it, bookmark it.
Can social policy influence the availability of local talent? And if so, how significant is this effect? The politicisation of the abortion debate in the US produces further potential challenges in an already short candidate market. Fascinating story to follow.
Interesting take from the ever interesting brainfooder Jan Tegze, who attempts to get into the mind of the LinkedIn fakers and ask….why? Reasonable explainer here, as well as some how-to tips to avoid being scammed on everyone’s favourite social network.
Fascinating and disturbing story on the persistent economic value of slave labour. Turns out the not only is it legal to use prison labour in the US but there are also workarounds to move those goods across state lines. Beautiful website, telling a terrible story. Kind of a must read folks.
Pt II follow up to one of the viral posts of 2021, Why Restaurants Are So F*cked, Restauranteur Joelle Parenteau documents the challenges pandemic has brought to the food industry in the style of a latter day Anthony Bourdain. On labour cost, supply chain, perishable stock and underpaid jobs which no one wants to do anymore, it’s a scintillating read.
Great conversation between two of the best commentators in our business. It’s Matt Alder talking with Lars Schmidt from Amplify Talent about the lessons from 2021 and the potential of 2022. Tune in folks, have a listen.
Fascinating exploration in the phenomenon of ‘lying flat’ - a euphemism for getting off the career track and re-orientating your life on other things aside from work. Personal stories from USA, Germany and China on the phenomenon, brainfood for us on how important a trend this may be for recruiting, retention and job design.
This collection of big ideas is something we need to do for brainfood next year. Love the expansiveness of the topics covered ranging from 4 day week being the killer EB differentiator to the empowerment of pro athletes against their governing bodies. Some really great stuff here - another must read
If you wanted a one webpage to tell you a little bit about how the world works, you could do worse than check out this list of data visualisations from Visual Capitalist. Some job stuff in there too, but really, every one of the 21 is either directly or indirectly relevant to the work we do. Have a look here
2022 will be the year of the worker? The Economist thinks so, as organisations will continue to struggle to hire next year despite the rise of the remote working and access to the global talent pool. Excellent wide ranging future focused podcast.
That anyone can roll out 400 episodes on a podcast is a really remarkable achievement. From Ep1 one of the best podcasts in our space, this special edition is a must listen of the future forces impacting our industry. It’s Matt Alder with Ep400 of Recruiting Future - have a listen.
Looks at 5 dimensions: worker confidence and job security, workplace conditions, pay and performance, worker mobility and gender and family. 15,000+ respondents, accessible 40 pager. Have a read here
The world (or rather, the ‘Google using’ world), searched ‘How to Start A Business’ more than ‘How to Get A Job’ in 2021, a search trend which correlates with record breaking new business formation in both the US and UK this year. Every one one of these new solopreneurs is one less (likely skilled, experienced) candidate in the market.
This is 200+ pages so I don’t expect anyone to read through this in one go, but if you care about macro trends which ultimately manifest at operational level as labour shortages, pay inequity, diversity and inclusion, remote work and the rest, you need to download this report.
We’re going to see a lot of these posts in the coming days and this collection from LinkedIn is one of the most relevant to us. Will the 4 day week become a hiring competitive advantage? Surely will for the experienced hires. Have a read here.
Liking this report from Peakon because it collects the data in a consistent way, presents it in a compelling way, before translating it into recommendations which we, can take-away.
Social mobility - or lack thereof - might in the end be the single most important factor that produces unequal outcomes. What can employers do about this? Worthy research by Totaljobs on the UK market, followed with a decent how-to checklist at the end.
We have already seen ‘job boards for the unvaccinated’, so one wonders what other innovations might emerge from US President Biden’s mandate for employees to be vaccinated? Summary of the rules & implications for our US readers here
‘Recruiters’ but we were not listed (do we not get married? are we not people?), so the best thing I could was search for ‘human resource manager’ who turned out to mainly marry other human resource managers….. fun tool.
University education has long been presented as the stepping stone for upward social mobility, but is that the case for all universities / colleges and for all degrees? In-depth, accessible, sobering research on the market value of the US college degree.
Working for oneself or another individual or a household is associated with lower wellbeing than working for a private company, a cooperative or a public sector/government organisation.
As the workers in the more privileged parts of the globe, set up shop as solopreneurs, freelancers and creators, those who are less privileged, have different needs from work. Full report here, summary here.
Can you believe it is the 9th anniversary of Data Never Sleeps, the classic infographic by DOMO on the size of the user generated internet based on the amount of data being produced / consumed by us users. You’ll probably use this in a slide deck somewhere.
‘free to use a mix of emotional heuristics and rational optimisation’…..one of many quotable moments in this fantastic interview with legendary ad man, Rory Sutherland. Must listen - every minute is worth it.
They’d work with the client, picking the brains of the older, retired employees who originally wrote the systems — but have occasionally had an old-timer die in the middle of the process….
COBOL programmers dying - through old age - is a real problem in a society which has come to rely on this ever decreasing pool of talent. Fascinating story on one of the most crucial hiring challenges in tech recruitment today.
The ‘candidate shortage’ disproportionately impacts industries which have long exploited immigrant labour. The UK Gov ‘solution’ of using prison labour simply transfers the exploitation from one vulnerable group to another. What role do we - as recruiters - play in this system? Long, important read. Especially if you also enjoy eating chicken.
Some interesting insights presented here on how US citizens are using the Internet, during the pandemic era. Check out the demographic breakdown on those most likely to use video. Essential considerations if we are to be successful in engineering any kind of ‘whole of society’ recovery.
Just 18 months since Jack Ma was lauding the work (very) hard culture of Chinese tech, it’s been banned. No matter what waivers have been agreed with employees, overtime must now be paid for any work over 44 hours per week. Some huge policy shifts in the world’s second largest economy this past month - state interventionism is back, and in a big way. Rui Ma twitter feed is a great English language friendly source if you want to track this yourself.
With Brexit induced labour shortages in logistics, food processing, agriculture, retail and other industries, it looks like UK Gov is going to try and fill the shortfall with prison labour, which will presumably also puts a future trade deal with Australia under threat. Whilst we do need to reconnect the formerly incarcerated with economic opportunity, how to do this ethically, and stay compliant with other countries trade policies? A topic for Brainfood Live I think
More data aggregation, this time from our buddies Indeed, whose Hiring Lab blog is fast becoming a must read resource. This post tracks the direction employers are going on the employee choice vs employee right to safe workplace we discussed last week. It’s becoming increasingly, ‘no jab, no job’.
Interesting research from Gallup; headline figures are that 50% of the US employees are thinking about a new job; more interestingly is what it takes to move them - 20% compensation uplift if they like their manager, and next to nothing if they don’t. Managers, are key. Full report, but digestible enough.
Once-a-decade release of US census data shows a changing and diversifying population. Relevant for DEIB initiatives, as well as for talent mapping in order to reach diversity targets. H/T for brainfooder Martyn Redstone for the share in the fb group
Some occupations disproportionately open up more future opportunities than others. So it would seem to make sense to create more of these ‘gateway occupations’ to enable greater social mobility for the millions of workers most vulnerable to workforce automation. Important research from McKinsey&Co
The State of the Octoverse explores a year of change with new deep dives into developer productivity, security, and how we build communities on GitHub
Data up to end of 2020, on how developers are building in open source. Beautifully done, and fascinating trends, especially on productivity. H/T brainfooder Denys Dinkevych for the share
Simple, easy-to-use tool; input your location, select your county, and output the sort of money you need to be making to above the poverty line. Useful for anyone doing Comp & Bens work, and fascinating for anybody interested in thinking about where future talent might relocate to. NB US data only
Systems will always be gamed, but privation creates motivation to do so. Another post which can be read as the impact of perverse incentives. Respect is surely due to the couple serially marrying & divorcing each other in order to secure government mandated ‘honeymoon leave’ and of course, the legendary Mr Zhang Salmon Dreams 🤣
Heather McGowan is a brilliant essayist on the future of work. Her series here with Forbes is consistently a must read, with this latest episode weaving together multiple publications to tell the story of profound change. There is no doubt we are at an inflection point; there is some doubt though, which way it is going to go.
A story of perverse incentives, where legislation aimed at protecting workers, encourages employer behaviour which produces the opposite outcome. Google likely uses Modis in order to get around a law which obliges them to convert long term contractors to perm - an old story in recruitment. As ever, HN has the most nuanced supporting conversation thread
Interesting sentiment analysis from PwC, who surveyed 32,517 members of the general public, with respondents including workers, business owners, contract workers, students, unemployed people looking for work, and those on furlough or who were temporarily laid off.
What were their - our - hopes and fears? Accessible and important report - get it here
A big test for Amazon and the revival of the union movement in the US has an outcome - workers at the Bessemer site vote 71% against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. This post tells the story from two workers of that 71%. HN as ever, has the best thread for deeper conversation on the topic.
Remember the line….👇 from the 9 trends post earlier?
Employers will shift from managing the employee experience to managing the life experience of their employees?
The thread is picked up in this outstanding essay on challenges which come from the collapse of the barrier between the professional and the personal - and the long overdue reckoning that society needs to make with the economy.
Balanced and well-referenced post by brainfooder Jim Stroud on the rising phenomenon of employee activism. At root, most of us would welcome increased rights for workers, but there is always misalignment between what is best for the worker, vs what is best for the employer. As HR / TA, we most often find ourselves squarely in the middle. No solutions here, but plenty of background reading - have at it, here
Barriers against job mobility for immigrant labour is one of the main reasons why immigrant labour wages are low - they have zero leverage to negotiate better terms. Big news in the Arab world as Saudi Arabia loosens the restrictions of the kalafa system, which some have criticised as a form of modern indentured service. H/T to brainfooder Bas van de Haterd for the share
Remote jobs are more common on major cities? An incongruity which makes sense when you consider that most jobs that could be performed remotely - generally the white collar, knowledge based ones - were mainly located in metropolitan centres. Must read research accessibly reported by brainfooder Pawel Adrjan, Head of EMEA Research at Indeed.
Massive report from the International Labour Organisation - one all of us should download. VisualCapitalist have crunched the data into a cool animated visualisation for those who want a more accessible high level view. H/T to brainfooder Ivan Harrison for the share.
It’s smart policy to take an interest in longitudinal trends. Big Ideas by ARK Invest is as good as place to start as any - an accessible report on some of the big trends which have transformatory potential in industry. H/T brainfooder Pedro Oliveira for the share
Sorry to close the brainfood segment with this terrible incident but it got me thinking about the additional risks that come from being the bearer of bad news. Does our role - perceived or otherwise - as gate keepers to the benefits of the employment create additional risks for us in pandemic era? And if so, what do we do about it? Maybe a topic of the first Brainfood Clubhouse chat (as soon as it appears for the ‘droiders)
Can you guess some of these? Surprisingly, ‘You’re on mute" wasn’t in there. But then this is a serious look on some of the most used phrases we heard in 2020 and a study on how cliche can have historical value, describing as they do, a ubiquity of experience with which we have become all too familiar
The World Economic Forum has consistently produced brainfoodable content this year, mainly through the assiduous use of visual storytelling techniques. Here’s their visual recap of 2020.
In times of uncertainty, people seek understanding and meaning. This year, the world searched “why” more than ever…..
Google - and the questions we ask of it - is a better chronicler of our times than any human storyteller. Check out the video here and the search trends itself here. H/T to brainfooder Chad Sowash for the share in the fb group
Superb interactive storytelling from McKinsey &Co, providing a single page scroller for those who want to timeline the year, but also modular posts, downloadable data sets and reports. If there is one ‘what happened in 2020’ post to read, this is it.
Fabulous collection from one of the must follow narrative builders today; Visual Capitalist tells the story of 2020 in 2020 charts, starting with the Australia wildfires through the global vaccine development effort - and our national attitudes to taking them. Well worth a read
If 2020 has anything to teach us, one of the lessons would be that none of us can divorce the work we do from the context of wider society. This amazing portrait tells the murky story of politics, FDI, the often false promise of ’re-shoring’ and the amazingly idiosyncratic corporate culture that emerged from it.
Fascinating research on the impact on immigration / emigration in one of the world’s most iconic cities - New York. Most interesting is who is leaving (150K pa) and who is coming in (<90K pa). 12 months ago we were talking about the megacity being the future of societal organisation - the reversal of this trend may be the most important impact Covid-19 will have.
Fantastic dashboard from Our World In Data, a data visualisation site which aggregates public research data and presents it into interactive web experience. Slice and dice the data as you want in this post on how we use our time - especially pertinent now that the barrier between work vs play has been co-mingled by Covid.
Superbly detailed analysis of the geographic distribution of Covid-19 relief funds, comparing the differing impact of policies in the US, UK and France. The research points to exacerbation of pre-existing inequities in some of the programs. Relevant to us as we project forward and forecast which sectors (and which locations) are in best/worse position in the post pandemic economy
What happens when the digitally native really go native - and return the village? As we see an unprecedented reversal of decades of urban agglomeration, this fascinating post describes the impact of what may occur when the metropolitan elites go back home. H/T Bas van de Haterd in the fb group
Perverse incentives galore in this fascinating long read on Foxconn’s mega factory in Wisconsin, trumpeted at the time as a major win for the re-shoring of US manufacturing jobs . Everything is here: hiring to hit quota’s, workers with no actual work, international culture clash, and what happens to a company without direction or plan. As ever, more cool discussion on this story on HN
Fascinating study on Japan’s Lost Generation - now middle aged adults, irregularly employed, living with ageing parents. A phenomenon exclusive to Japan, or a window into a future we might all share? Must read
Our World In Data is a website we should all be bookmarking, especially as they continue to iterate on the UX. This web page is a series of interactive charts on the rate of technological progress over the past 100 years. Amazing, optimistic, useful and fun - have a blast here
This post is about real estate but it’s also about UX - specifically the UX that property companies need to provide to now reluctant office workers who might be doubting the value of an office. It’s wonderfully well written, with deep insight on the central point that Covid-19 forces product businesses to become service businesses. Have a read.H/T brainfooder Alex Brock for the share
This shot from the staff of the arcade is such a beautiful example of what the gaming and nerd community can be like. The arcade will be missed by all who stepped inside; it leaves behind a great legacy of good times and nerd culture that will surely be missed. But, when the world is ready to start rebuilding, who knows what could end up filling that spot.
And….I cried a little bit, at this story, and at that picture.
Thought provoking twitter thread from the OP of the original WSJ article (full article linked in the thread) on the division between those who could choose to stay remote, and those who never had the choice. Have a read here
This is a great complement to the above piece on AI and Jobs; whereas the first talked about the skills needed, this post goes further to speculate what jobs might actually be done. Do you see yourself being a ‘genetic diversity officer’? Optimistic (and contingent) on the persistent of the company as the primary way of organising work though. We all need to read more Ronald Coase
The thing missing from the animated sequence of this superb post from the BBC are the mobile robot sanitisers, which are already seeing in operation in places in East Asia. At some point though, people are going to ask ‘what is the point’ and flip the switch to full remote. Huge change coming, including the reversal of urban agglomeration. H/T to brainfooder Adam Gordon for the share in the fb group
Examining how the hardest hit of our industry sectors is a decent way of building a forecast in the shape of businesses that will emerge in the post Covid economy. Fascinating, accessible long read for the New Yorker - on how the restaurant trade is disaggregating into specific components, which each may become different businesses in a new supply chain.
Fascinating, bottom up innovation from the SV tech community, creating a secondary market for job referrals to the most popular tech employers. Ends justify the means, or an ethical unwinding of the very idea of recommending someone for a job? Brainfood for sure, so have a read here. H/T to brainfooder Missy Lafferty for the share in the fb group
Confounding post in which every line that seemed right (“nothing actually happens there - unless you are a recruiter or in enterprise sales)” was followed by a line which seemed wrong (“I’m fairly certain LinkedIn has never helped me in my job search”)
Got to respect this fellow for #deletinglinkedin - and a brainfood reminder to us, that Big Blue not the entirety of the world.
Important ruling (Swiss brainfooders pls update where you are with this) from Switzerland’s top court: employers are required to contribute to employees’ rent if they work from home. Being a little stunned by unexpected second order effects of Covid-19 will be only thing that is predictable these days. Fascinating changes in the relationship between individual, company and the state. Have a read here
This post is about doner kebabs, the price of food and our accountability as consumers for the potential death of the industry. Make no mistake - restaurants as a category may not survive this economic downturn. We have to reset and revalue. Great and necessary read
Socioeconomic sorting at the metropolitan level is making America more polarised, a pattern repeated throughout the Western world. The ‘left behind’ are striking back, by voting in populists who promise change. Political economy are no longer in synch. We’re in trouble folks - anyone any ideas?
Nice interactive tool from OECD on the average annual hours worked - defined as the total number of hours actually worked per year divided by the average number of people in employment per year.
The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. Massive but an accessible and fascinating read.
Will tech workers become revivalists for the labour union? I think there’s every chance they could. Check this latest example from the games industry - a decentralised, horizontally organised community of workers, set up defend members rights.
At times when government action can seem painfully slow - especially in the production and distribution of test kits and PPE, it is useful to be reminded that government can also do really fast. An inspiring list of what can be done when we get our act together. Any time around now would be great
We are finding out the hard way who really does the important work in society. Sadly, it correlates to work which has greatest risk in exposure to Coronavirus. Its humbling stuff
Technocratic management - no matter how brilliant - cannot unwind structural inequalities. Amazing essay in defence of the much maligned managerial middle class, and of the enormous, self serving cultural power of the big management consultancies. Must read
Wealth inequality continues to it’s polarising trend worldwide. You need money to make money. We need to try and bend this iron law of history, because unfair resource competition can only lead to one end. Accessible, interactive report.
This is a very cool website. Bravo UNESCO for building this Hans Rosling style interactive on country spend on research and development. Great way to connect data with UX and an excellent example of how to create an online resource that is a pleasure to use. Might also be useful, in some way, to us here.
Are recruiters more right wing than HRBPs? Someone’s researched the correlation between the jobs we choose and the ideologies we feel comfortable with. Super interesting reading here on the relationship between professional and political identities - dive in if you like to get out of your comfort zone.
There was plenty of talk late last year about ’ghosting’ in recruitment, so this fun post by SmartRecruiters is timely. 4 terms that have entered the lexicon of recruitment that we should know. Take a look here
Astonishing essay from Meredith L. Patterson on tribal formation on the Internet. At root, this is a defence of the ‘real hackers’ vs the cultural appropriation of hacker culture by the cool kids. It’s also an appeal for the radical acceptance of divergent values - a challenging idea we need to get to grips with. If you’re running some kind of community or event, then this read is for you.
‘Attention is the currency of today’s distraction economy 'someone said. This extraordinary essay on digital pollution gives us both the 'where we are now’ and suggestions on 'where we need to go next’. As recruiters, we’re in the front line of this problem and we could all do well to read this
With 450 million users, Reddit is the 7th most visited website on the planet and the place where stories break days before it hits Facebook / Twitter, and weeks before broadcast media. What do Redditors talk about? What are the most popular topics, communities? This is one Year in Review that is worth exploring.
Great visual storytelling from one of the best sites to do it. This interactive graphic shows the poverty rate of every state, and the changes of that rate, over time. It’s a pattern repeated all over the world. Question is: what can do about it?
Nice piece of research from As You Sow, using the power of data to shame organisations who overpay their CEO’s. Contrast with the news this week on Dan Price, who famously equalised his employees pay to $70,000 regardless of job role. H/T to brainfooder Colin McNicol for the share in the fb group.
Essential reading for anyone interested in political / economic polarity. UK specific, but the trends are global: major metropolitan centres gaining, lesser regional towns losing. And no one quite knows what to do about it.
“Women account for almost all the growth in the rich-world employment rate since 2007”
Remarkable line from this robust defence of capitalism from The Economist. As recruiters, the ‘talent shortage’ is lived experience for us, and yet if this thesis is true, how do we explain the angst that is driving populism in our politics? Can’t just be Murdoch can it?
It’s been fashionable of late to challenge the practice of over generalising the generational difference. Yet the amongst the many fascinating conversations I had last week in Paris, the one I shared with Francois Gauthier stuck most in my mind - that the latest generation of recruiters who are entering the workforce now prefer to use touchscreen rather than keyboard. The implications for work - and the work we do - might be profound.
A new study, drawing on 1.5 million images of cultural spaces in London and New York, finds that cultural capital is a key contributor to urban economic growth. It’s a bit technical but it’s fascinating. Full report here
The role of the employer are a purveyor of trust is a significant trend outlined in this fascinating report by Edelman. As trust in government and media decline, we may find that our companies begin having an important role to play in. The implications for us in HR / TA are obvious as they are ominous
As good an overview of Kubernetes that I’ve read, especially in how it contextualises it in the history of IT infrastructure. Not recruitment related at all really, but kind of a must read if you’re involved in building a business with any kind of tech in it.
Analysis by Deloitte of the UK public sector, with some forecasting as to the post Brexit, big government future under the Conservative government. Great looking interactive report, and for UK readers at least, an important read.
Fascinating insight on the work we demand others do; Casey Newton creates the narrative of Facebook being the monster again but what else can we can expect when we want platforms to not show us bad things on the Internet? (Answer: it requires other humans to watch it and remove it for us)
Turning crisis into an opportunity is something actually something we have no choice, as medical advances, higher living standards and declining birthrate combine to create a demographic crisis so long as we reject the older worker. Necessary report from HBR
Where you live, is perhaps the most important single factor in what you turn out to be. Free movement of people is the socio-political struggle of our times. This amazing resource from Opportunity Atlas can help get us to a point where we can have a sensible conversation of what to do about it. Explore it here.
Super essay from Heather McGowan on how Covid-19 forces us to deal with questions long deferred - inequality and climate change. The examples of corporate and community collaboration offer hope for a fairer and more resilient future. Have a read
We’ve got time for scenario planning these days so this document by Deloitte is an excellent guidance on how to shape the thinking. Four possible scenarios outlined, in an accessible 27 pager. Must read for any business owner.
Superb interactive from our buddies at Visual Capitalist, tracking immigration flows into the United States. Who came to America, when and why? Striking animation of a story which is sadly all too topical these days. Check it out here.
..“memory of remarkable ability, if that is the source of one’s self-worth, might, for some, provide an invidious contrast to a later, less remarkable life….”
Astonishing read from The Atlantic. I’m thinking gig economy + network value + artisanal economy might ameliorate some of the effects described here. Long read, must read for all of us here - important on a personal and professional level.
Superb essay on the long term, multi-dimensional impact of disruptive technology, particularly how innovation can change the value of skills in the labour market. Precise analogies readily available in todays world of accelerating technological change. Great brainfood.
300 of the largest metropolitan areas account for nearly half all global economic output. Yet as wealth and people migrate to the big cities, political power does not follow. We’re seeing the manifestations of this throughout the democratic world. We need to read this one folks.
Stunning interactive from Lucify, on a subject which is causing political crisis throughout Europe. Based on data from the United Nations, the pattern is clear: war generates forced emigration from conflict zones.
Superb long read on a challenging topic from New York Times. The stories we tall about human migration are reverberating in our politics and we need to pay attention. Not an easy one folks but we need to read this one.
Work has become political folks, as Hayden Fields explains in this excellent essay on the rise of ethical positioning taken by self organising employees. A new form of collective action is appearing, and it’s lead by tech workers.
GDPR teaches regulatory divergences can have profound impact on our experience of the Internet. A fractured web is the likely unintended outcome says brainfooder Jacob Sten Madsen. (UPDATE: Copyright Directive has been rejected by EU parliament)
As we live longer, but not necessarily better, we’re going to increasingly need greater help in living a life. Healthcare practitioners of all stripes in great shape throughout the US. Other jobs….not doing so great.
I didn’t realise that the government shutdown in the US wasn’t metaphorical; services do stop being delivered, federal workers told not to report, salaries not paid. It’s crazy dysfunction in the No1 country on planet earth
In our uncomfortable but perhaps overdue conversations on immigration, one factor is often hidden in plain sight - immigrants - by definition - are prepared to move to the work. This is superb essay provides insight on why native workers can’t - or don’t - always do so. Take some time folks and read it - we’ve got to get this debate going.
Accessible slide deck on the most significant ‘deep tech’ trends in 2019. Learn about IOT, 3D printing, voice, AR/VR, personal analytics - niche recruiting topics now but mainstays for our business in the near future. Download here
Ethical positioning by tech workers is a under reported yet increasingly common phenomena of our times. As much as big tech has become a lightning rod for our social ills, we may find that they will become our saviours after all - mainly through the actions of their workers, like these folks from DoorDash. Have a read of this open letter here.
The self directed politicisation, mobilisation and organisation of the tech workers has been a growing phenomena over the past few years. doteveryone is a UK project which aims to collect information about this powerful demographic and gain insight on what tech workers expect from their employers. Exec summary here but the full report is readable and available here.
A glimpse of the suburban grotesque, featuring Russian mobsters, Fox News rage addicts, a caged man in a sex dungeon, and Dick Cheney
Kind of says it all. Incredible essay from Lauren Hough, recounting the time when she was working as cable tech, and encountering the citizens and denizens of urban America. It’s a long read, but it’s worth it
Some revealing big data on societal change; we’re looking less at mobile apps as we travel far less, and are diving deeper into digital networking because we’re looking for that connection. How much of this will persist? Not all I would say but certainly some. H/T brainfooder James Ellis for the share
Fascinating table of the impact of Corona virus to the E-commerce market. In hindsight, actually not surprising that bread makers are ranking top of the list, as part of what looks like a wholesale re-evaluation of what is really important to us in life. Must read
The politics of nationalism have a direct impact in our work in talent acquisition and HR. This superb website provides interactive tree-maps on the economic contribution provided of ‘New American’ entrepreneurs. Fascinating and important. Take a look here
This is the time of year when listicles really do come into their own. This effort by Fortune is one of the best I’ve read, entirely because of the quality of the people they’ve got on to commentate. From Mariana Mazzucato to Nir Eyal to Melinda Gates, these are some optimistic forecasts for 2020, and a great overview of key trends to look out for.
Fascinating pattern matching on political leanings vs work occupations. Intuitively, it makes sense to think that different occupations might attract people with different perspectives on the world. This rather cool website illustrates the point with the occupations of US Democratic vs Republican politicians. Wonder who the split might look amongst us brainfooders. Perhaps time for another survey?
