A Blockbuster Jobs Report Shifts The Narrative Amid Labor Disputes, Hurricane Destruction And A Close Election

This is the published version of Forbes’ Future of Work newsletter, which offers the latest news for chief human resources officers and other talent managers on disruptive technologies, managing the workforce and trends in the remote work debate. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday!

October is here, and the sprint to the end of the year is fraught with distractions, disasters and disengagement that will be challenging for anyone managing workplaces and teams. A tight, polarizing election has workers unsettled and anxious—and could drive more conflict in the office. An escalating crisis in the Middle East brings increasing tensions over geopolitical issues, uncertainty about planning ahead and more concerns for employees with family in the region.

Add the devastation of a massive hurricane across the Southeast, and it’s been an unparalleled season of disruption for many leaders and workplaces. Hurricane Helene has disrupted operations at a quartz mine in western North Carolina, washing out roads and cutting power to an area critical to semiconductor manufacturing. Some employers across the region are working hard to help workers struggling without power, water or even homes—while others in Tennessee face inquiries from the state Bureau of Investigation over allegations that they ignored warnings about Helene and required employees to report to work, leading to deaths and missing workers. Asheville, which had prospered with an influx of remote workers, entrepreneurs and new business owners, now faces an unprecedented challenge to rebuild.

Amid all the chaos is the human cost—and a humanitarian crisis. Disaster relief is inherently hard to execute well, and the people leading it will need support. If you want to help, my colleague Kelly Phillips Erb has a rundown over what you need to know about tax deductible donations and where to donate. Read on for more in today’s newsletter about how Amazon’s RTO push remains in the headlines, Friday’s blockbuster jobs report and an interview with Handshake’s chief talent engagement officer about AI and jobs.

HUMAN CAPITAL

September job growth shattered economists’ predictions, as U.S. employers added 254,000 jobs last month, according to nonfarm payrolls data released Friday by the Labor Department. It was the biggest month for jobs growth since March, sprinting past average economist estimates of 150,000 and prompting the unemployment rate to dip to 4.1%, compared to projections of 4.2%, where it stood in August. Investors cheered the news with big stock gains Friday.

Striking dockworkers and port employers reached a tentative agreement Thursday, ending a strike that began earlier in the week and lifting concerns over the potential impact to the U.S. economy. The tentative agreement includes a 62% wage increase over six years, according to the Wall Street Journal, and will temporarily relieve Democrats fearful of the strike’s impact on the November election. The big issue still up for negotiation? Automation, as workers remain concerned about the potential for layoffs and fewer jobs for humans in the future.

REMOTE WORK

The fallout over Amazon’s decision to require full-time office work has remained in the headlines even several weeks after the tech giant made the announcement. Dell has since mandated that salespeople come back to the office five days a week, while McKinsey is also reportedly asking staff to be onsite more often. Will the trend continue? Contributor Ann Kowal Smith sees Amazon’s move as the “canary in the coal mine for a dangerous problem,” noting “the relationship between employers and employees has become one based on power, not mutual respect and collaboration.” Meanwhile, contributor Ryan Anderson suggests the continued disappointment leaders feel in one-size-fits-all hybrid policies could mean a different approach would be better for workplace flexibility.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The most sweeping attempt so far to regulate artificial intelligence, a California bill that could have set a precedent for other laws, was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom last week. “I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public,” Newsom said, according to the New York Times. If the California bill had been signed into law, writes Forbes contributor Owen Tedford, it would have predominantly focused on improving AI safety, with businesses that create large AI models required to perform safety tests and publicly disclose how they’d prevent the models from being manipulated. Tedford examines what could come next, suggesting the bill could be changed and reintroduced in future sessions.

WHAT’S NEXT: Valerie Capers Workman

Forbes caught up with Valerie Capers Workman, chief talent engagement officer at student careers platform Handshake, about how AI is shifting jobs as we know them, a recent book she published and addressing the gender divide in AI. Excerpts from our conversation have been edited for length and clarity.

How is AI changing jobs?

I’m going to use my son as an example. He entered school in 2018-2019, he was going to be a data scientist. Data science was the career: You’re going to get a job the second you hit junior year, you’re going to be flooded with internships and you’re going to be employed. Enter A.I. The ability of A.I. to take on so much of the preliminary data science work [means] you need to be a masters or PhD in data science to skip over what A.I. can do. [He realized] ‘I need to go back to school.’ He is now applying to universities for artificial intelligence master’s degrees. He loves having the skill set, but A.I. enables more companies to do what he was doing.

What message did you want to share in your book?

The most important concept that I was raising is that the requirement to be superhuman; the requirements of EQ are more important in the age of AI than all the pundits are saying. My point is, yes, you can get an entry level job, but you’re not moving up without the EQ, without the combination of AI plus liberal arts skills, the critical thinking skills, you’re going to stay right there. The ability to move and progress in your career? You’re going to have to do both.

[“AI skills”] are the ability to ask great questions and understand whether or not you’ve got a great answer and then utilize that answer to do the work you’re doing. The ability to ask great questions? That requires critical thinking skills, language skills, reading comprehension skills, historical context, ethical understanding and understanding of biases. Generative AI is what is going to differentiate the general workforce from the executive workforce track, if you will. I think it was a COO from BlackRock who said [they want] to hire finance or tech employees who have liberal arts or history majors? That’s what I’m talking about.

If you’re hiring, how do you assess that AI skill?

If I’m interviewing someone on my team, I’d ask them: ‘I have this issue. Give me an AI prompt that will help me. Give me a prompt that you would use to help me finish this project for me in five days.’

Are you pulling on the right threads to understand what types of questions you need to ask? If I find someone who knows how to frame a question, I can train you how to do that better. I can’t train you how to think.

Do companies have a responsibility to retrain their people who work in fields where jobs will be replaced, such as customer service?

That’s a great societal question.

What is the responsibility of the employer to reskill its current workforce if a set of roles can now be done by AI? I like to put it this way: The companies that understand how to repurpose their workforce for the higher order skills that need to be done by humans—that can’t be done by A.I.—are the companies that are going to win.

We’re hearing more about how women are not developing the AI skills at the same pace and could get left behind. What can be done to help with this?

In higher education, they need to have required courses, period. Just required. It cannot be optional because women are not taking the AI courses at the same rate as their male counterparts. It can’t be optional. … The societal issues that caused them to run away from a phrase like prompt engineering go all the way back to when they were in third grade. So, required courses.

Same thing with employers. Training should not be optional. … You’re going to leave people behind who don’t think that certain courses apply to them. AI courses apply to everyone. They should be mandatory. You can solve a lot of societal anomalies and inequities just by making the playing field even for everyone without having people required to opt in.

FACTS + COMMENT

Last week’s jobs report was a big one, prompting a stock market rally and causing the odds of another interest rate cut in the coming months to fall.

176,000: How many more jobs than expected the U.S. nonfarm labor force grew by from July to September, according to the Labor Department. September’s 254,000 nonfarm payroll additions, the highest total in six months, were 104,000 more than economist forecasts, while the government upwardly revised July and August’s payroll growth by 55,000 and 17,000, respectively.

83.8%: Prime-age labor force participation, or people working or looking for work, is near multi-decade highs

“The labor market isn’t on the brink of collapse and still has the potential to deliver surprises, however its ability to sustain momentum without further support from the Federal Reserve is not guaranteed.”—​​Cory Stahle, economist for Indeed Hiring Lab, in a statement

STRATEGIES + ADVICE

Here’s how to respond if your employee accuses you of discrimination.

Why a lack of female leaders at the top can mirror biases across the organization.

Want to establish psychological safety at work? Here are the best tips for leaders.

VIDEO

2024 Forbes Future of Work Summit | Handmade + Human: Leading Etsy’s Marketplaces In An Age Of AI

QUIZ

At a recruiting event for prospective employees, Elon Musk called which company “closed, for-maximum-profit AI”?

1. Microsoft
2. Google
3. OpenAI
4. Anthropic

Check out the answer here.