Tag: Services

Focus On Productivity: How COVID taught us to do more with less resources…

Focus On Productivity: How COVID taught us to do more with less resources...

Focus On Productivity: How COVID taught us to do more with less resources…

According to the Global Travel Staffing Barometer, due to the pandemic, travel companies around the world have laid off or furloughed over half a million people, and the number of LinkedIn users in the hospitality space applying the #opentowork hashtag to their profiles grows day after day. Most hotels are struggling to run operations with skeleton crews only, yet they do not have any real alternative. In some countries, in fact, the financial help coming from governments is close to zero, so the only option for […]

Keir Starmer was right on one thing in his reshuffle – we need a Future of Work Secretary

Keir Starmer was right on one thing in his reshuffle - we need a Future of Work Secretary

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader visit the Liberty Steel Pipe Mill in Hartlepool. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) After a poor set of local election results and a botched reshuffle, Labour hasn’t had the best of weeks. But one thing it may have gotten right is the appointment of Angela Rayner as “shadow secretary for the future of work”. While it is easy to mock the elaborate titles bestowed on the deputy leader after she was sacked from as party chair and national campaign coordinator, her brief is nothing to scoff at. The […]

It’s not a ‘labor shortage.’ It’s a great reassessment of work in America

From Wall Street to the White House, expectations were high for a hiring surge in April with potentially a million Americans returning to work. Instead, the world learned Friday that just 266,000 jobs were added, a massive disappointment that raises questions about whether the recovery is on track or not.

President Biden’s team has vowed that its massive stimulus package will recover all the remaining jobs lost during the pandemic in about a year, but that promise won’t be kept unless there’s a big pickup in hiring soon. There are still 8.2 million jobs left to recover. At the same […]

In wake of COVID, employers step up automation and use of robots

In wake of COVID, employers step up automation and use of robots

As the U.S. economy rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are turning to greater use of automation, including robots, rather than calling back workers or hiring new ones in many cases.

The trend is affecting almost every sector, including manufacturing, distribution, transportation, retail, restaurants and many kinds of personal and government services.

Airports have begun been using mobile robots to spray disinfecting chemicals on their facilities — work that janitors had initially done wearing moon suits and other personal protection equipment.The Pennsylvania Turnpike eliminated toll collection by hand and switched to a cashless electronic system.Procter & Gamble, the maker of detergents, […]

How automation could turn capitalism into socialism

How automation could turn capitalism into socialism

There can be no doubt that automation is the future of work. There’s plenty of debate as to what extent AI will displace workers in the near and far future, but the general consensus is that blue collar work is an endangered species. It’s only a matter of time before robots can perform skilled human labor better and cheaper than we can. What happens then? Companies will embrace automation

The past is prescient here. In the early 1900s the onset of US factories provided an employment boom for blue collar workers. As the decades wore on, US prosperity became […]

In wake of COVID, employers step up automation and use of robots

In wake of COVID, employers step up automation and use of robots

At the Grand Food Depot in Los Angeles, a robot moves a restaurant order to the next station before it reaches the customer. WASHINGTON —

As the U.S. economy rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are turning to greater use of automation, including robots, rather than calling back workers or hiring new ones in many cases.

The trend is affecting almost every sector, including manufacturing, distribution, transportation, retail, restaurants and many kinds of personal and government services.Airports have begun been using mobile robots to spray disinfecting chemicals on their facilities — work that janitors had initially done wearing moon suits and […]

Building Community into Our Work

Building Community into Our Work

“Heart of the World,” Sandra Strait In NPQ ’s latest Remaking the Economy webinar, Lorena Andrade of La Mujer Obrera of El Paso, Texas; Pamela Standing of the Minnesota Indigenous Business Alliance ; and Ellen Vera of Co-op Cincy outlined some of the joys and challenges inherent in economy building in low-income, BIPOC communities. We’ve made the hour-long webinar freely available—and I encourage you to watch it . Here, I share a few highlights, both to whet your viewing appetite and because what these community leaders say merits attention.

Often, with national platforms like this one, there is a tendency […]

Job Growth Reported in Shreveport Area

Job Growth Reported in Shreveport Area

Good news on the jobs front in Shreveport and the entire state of Louisiana. The unemployment rate across the state is down and each of the major metro areas is showing job growth.

Louisiana’s March 2021 unemployment fell to 6.6% from the February rate of 7.1%. This is the lowest not seasonally adjusted rate since March of last year before work came to a screeching halt for millions across the nation.

Here are the numbers from the major metro areas in our state: • Alexandria: 4.4 percent, down from 4.8 percent in February and down from 5.4 percent in March […]

Artificial intelligence, jeopardises employment

Artificial intelligence, jeopardises employment

Do millennials face economic uncertainty in the future? As employment increasing become more automated, McKinsey & Company (Global management consultants) predicts that, “60% of all work activities could be automated by 2055”.

As far back as the 16th century, mechanisation was introduced in the form of looms, that were used to weave the material used for stockings and rugs. However, Queen Elizabeth I, was very reluctant to encourage this industry as she felt that “stocking knitters” would become redundant in this field.

By the 19th century, textile workers were facing life changing inventions, as the Industrial Revolution became the catalyst to […]

Legislation must catch up with ‘huge shift in nature of work’

Legislation must catch up with ‘huge shift in nature of work’

The government needs to produce new employment legislation, policy and practice to accommodate the ‘hybrid reality of today’s workplace,’ according to a House of Lords inquiry.

The Lords’ Covid-19 Committee report, Beyond Digital: Planning for a Hybrid World stated that our growing reliance on digital technology is causing significant changes in the nature of our relationship with our employers. It added that the growth of platform working, digital monitoring and “epresenteeism” posed a significant risk for people’s wellbeing in work.

To deal with changes to our working conditions, and the relationship between employee and employer, the Lords stated “the government […]