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!
What impact will the incoming Trump Administration’s policies on immigration have on staffing and hiring for needed jobs—particularly the less desirable ones that immigrants, and especially undocumented ones, have long filled in this country?
It’s a question that has caused much consternation and fear, and has led to warnings about troubling economic consequences. The New York Times, for instance, reported that when economists studied the effects of 400,000 deportations of unauthorized immigrants between 2008 and 2013, they found that for every 100 people removed from the labor market because of deportations, there were nine fewer jobs for U.S.-born workers.
That may very well prove to be the case. But Forbes’ Brandon Kochkodin reports that, at least in Florida, the impact was different. A law in the Sunshine State that took effect last summer required businesses with 25 or more employees to use E-Verify, an online system run by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration, to confirm the immigration status of new hires. Part of a broader effort to crack down on undocumented workers in the state, the law was criticized for placing extra burdens on small businesses, especially in agriculture, construction and hospitality, where finding workers was already difficult.
But Kochkodin reports that so far, the critics have been wrong. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the state’s gross domestic product increased by 9.2% last year, tops in the nation and outpacing the national average by nearly 3 percentage points.
Of course, Trump has promised an immigration policy that’s harsher than Florida’s, including mass deportations—something the state can’t do. The economic impact could be much, much bigger. But Kochkodin notes that Trump is a negotiator known for pushing for more to get what he wants or will settle for, and if deportations are more targeted—and at this point, it’s still anyone’s guess—Florida’s law and its impact could provide some insight. Read more of Kochkodin’s story here.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The Department of Justice filed sweeping proposals last week that would force Google to sell off its popular Chrome browser, ban distribution contracts like the one Google has with Apple, or potentially bar Google from requiring Android phone makers to include Google apps on their devices, Forbes’ Richard Nieva reports. But there was more to the news: The government also included provisions that could hobble Google’s role in the future of AI, Nieva reported. Read more here.
Can artificial intelligence be a decent manager? New research from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania says yes. The study, conducted by professor Lindsey Cameron, looked at an existing example of workers overseen by an AI-powered manager: ride-hail drivers responding to apps such as Uber or Lyft. While mechanized management may seem like it lacks empathy, it works well for some roles, Cameron reported. Ride-hail drivers, for instance, actually enjoy working with their AI-driven apps, the research found.
HUMAN CAPITAL
Donald Trump’s incoming administration aims to make major cuts to the powers of the federal agency that protects unions, with corporations such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX hitting the National Labor Relations Board with lawsuits, and allies of the president-elect considering firing the board’s Democratic members, the Washington Post reported. Last week, SpaceX and Amazon, which is the nation’s second-largest private employer, argued in federal court that the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional.
HYBRID WORK
Think hybrid work innovations are just for small, cutting-edge companies? Think again. Bloomberg examined how Allstate, the nearly 100-year-old insurance giant, has ditched two-thirds of its office space and sold its Chicago headquarters, replacing it with offices for about a quarter of the company’s employees that are booked by the day through a coworking platform known as LiquidSpace. “Allstate is trying to thread the needle with a mix of options that keep flexibility a priority,” writes Bloomberg’s Matthew Boyle.
WHAT’S NEXT: MERCOR COFOUNDER BRENDAN FOODY
Forbes spoke recently with Brendan Foody, 21, one of the cofounders of AI-powered jobs marketplace Mercor, which recently raised a $32 million Series A led by Benchmark with high-profile investors like Peter Thiel, Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Mercor uses AI to vet and interview job candidates in hopes of building what Foody calls a “global unified labor market,” and he says it’s on track to grow 5000 percent this year. (No, there’s not an extra zero there.) Excerpts from the interview below have been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s start with getting just a big picture idea of some of the ways you see tools like this changing the way people go about searching for a new role.
The heart of the inefficiency in how people find jobs is that a given candidate only applies to a couple dozen jobs or even a handful, and a given company only considers a fraction of a percent of the people in the market. The reason for that is there’s this matching problem that needs to be solved manually. People need to manually review resumes, manually conduct interviews, and have these conversations to figure out who’s a good fit to go where.
But when you’re able to build technology that can solve this matching problem at the cost of software, it makes way for a global unified labor market that’s far more efficient, where every candidate takes an interview with one company and every company hires from that one centralized platform.
We have a strong conviction in this centralization thesis. It’ll make sense that in ten years everyone’s applying to one platform. Every company is hiring from one platform, and we want to be that platform. The secret sauce behind our business is predicting how well some will perform in a job better than a human can. … We collect all the data on who’s getting promoted, who’s getting dismissed, who’s getting bonuses because all of that is flowing through our platform.
So LinkedIn is seen as a competitor, right?
Yeah, I think in a lot of ways. But LinkedIn is only focused on this very thin layer of what are the companies [where] someone’s worked. Our focus is how can we build—get so much information on someone—that we we’re able to predict how well they [will] perform on a job.
What kind of roles do you hire for?
We’re still very focused on contract roles because that’s where there’s a high ratio of the cost of assessing talent proportional to how long they’re in the role. … The top [job category] is code, but we also have a very significant presence in finance, consulting, law, accounting, PhDs in various disciplines like biology, physics, chemistry.
How often are humans not part of the interview process?
Very frequently. That’s the way we do most hiring.
Where do you go next after contract roles?
The way that you would hire a great contract consultant is not that different from the way you would hire a great full-time consultant. … We’re very much planning on moving into all full-time roles.
Everything that you could assess via a Zoom interview the models will be good at assessing. This includes software engineering, and most knowledge work. The thing it might not include is executive jobs.
[One of our investors] has studied a lot of labor marketplaces and he’s realized that there’s a 50 to 1 ratio of applicants relative to people that get jobs in the average labor marketplace. It creates this challenge as your scaling: Most people aren’t getting jobs. But if you’re able to create intrinsic value for the applicant, regardless of whether they get a job, it allows you to grow much more quickly and allow hundreds of millions of people to come onto the platform but still have good experiences. So we’re pumping a lot of money into giving away free AI mock interviews, free AI resumé feedback and eventually, free AI career advice.
How does it work?
They would pay us per hour that someone works. We take a percentage, then we pay the contractor that’s working with [the company] on this staffing arrangement. It might be they’re paying $100 an hour for [a consulting job], and we take a 30% fee and then pay $70 [an hour] to the person. The reason we’re so focused on that structure is that for us, the North Star is predicting who’s going to perform well on jobs. So we want all the business logic of who’s getting bonuses for what reasons and who’s getting promoted for what reasons, which translates into better predictions.
FACTS + COMMENT
The New York Times examined a new report from the Burning Glass Institute that looks at so-called “launchpad jobs,” or promising starter jobs that opened doors to larger career paths. The report examined job-site profiles, government data and surveys to compile career histories of more than 65 million American workers, the Times reported. The research was commissioned by the nonprofit American Student Assistance, which offers online career readiness tools and information.
1 in 5: The ratio of workers with only a high school diploma that earned more than $70,000 a year—above the median income of college graduates—by the age of 40
73: The number of “launchpad jobs” identified by the report, which include bank teller, pharmacy aide, telemarketer and flight attendant
“The real power of a launchpad job is what it can lead to, the next job and the one after that”—Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, to the New York Times
STRATEGIES + ADVICE
Open enrollment season is almost over. Here are five resources to craft competitive work-family employee benefits next year.
A professor of ethics and finance shares how businesses can prepare for the incoming Trump Administration and balance the pursuit of profit with ethical practices.
Here are three skills leaders can use to navigate post-election tension at work.
VIDEO
QUIZ
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, who called for a full-time return to office for federal employees?
- Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and CEO William Lewis
- Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy
- President-elect Donald Trump
- Vice President-elect JD Vance
Check out if you got the answer right here.
