In New Jersey, the coronavirus outbreak has resulted in something that few people outside that state’s tech department would have foreseen: a dire need for COBOL coders. From a report, shared by reader AmiMoJo: Standing for Common Business-Oriented Language, COBOL’s day came and went long ago. It initially made a splash by giving coders a programming language that could work across…
Tag: Unemployment
Bay Area Group Pushes $1,000 Universal Basic Income For Everyone
“Gisele Huff is convinced universal basic income is finally having its moment,” reports the Bay Area newsgroup, describing the 84-year-old president of a nonprofit promoting universal basic incomes to honor their recently-deceased son, a Tesla software engineer:
While Huff’s organization is only a few years old, it has already made its mark in the Bay Area. Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors…
Not Everyone is Laying Off Workers Because of Coronavirus. These Are the Most in-demand Jobs Right Now.
A record 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, according to Thursday’s Labor Department report, compared with around 280,000 a week earlier. That said, it hasn’t all been bad news for those in search of work, as the pandemic places increased demand on industries like health care and delivery services. 10 most in-demand jobs in the US: Store associate
System…
How Uber and Lyft Drivers Handle the Risk of Coronavirus Infections
“Thousands of full-time rideshare drivers are still out on the streets trying to carve out a living,” notes The Hustle, interviewing more than 50 full-time rideshare drivers facing a difficult choice: “Stay home and sacrifice a livelihood, or keep driving in a depressed market and risk contracting the virus.”
As independent contractors, rideshare drivers don’t receive sick leave, unemployment insurance, or the…
Mitt Romney Thinks Every American Adult Should Get $1,000 During The Coronavirus Outbreak
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to hit the US, people nationwide are being encouraged to stay inside their homes and states and cities are beginning to close restaurants, bars, and other businesses. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has a plan he thinks can help: Give every adult in the US $1,000. From a report: “Every American adult should immediately receive $1,000 to…
New California Bill Proposes $1,000-a-Month Universal Basic Income
1 out of 8 Americans live in California. Now a proposed California law “would provide most adults in the state with a universal basic income of $1,000 per month, similar to the proposed plan of former presidential candidate Andrew Yang,” reports Newsweek: The California Universal Basic Income (UBI) Program was Funding the program with a value-added tax has been blasted by…
Thoughts on Our Possible Future Without Work
There’s a new book called A World Without Work by economics scholar/former government policy adviser Daniel Susskind. The Guardian succinctly summarizes its prognostications for the future: It used to be argued that workers who lost their low-skilled jobs should retrain for more challenging roles, but what happens when the robots, or drones, or driverless cars, come for those as well? Predictions…
Uber Hit With $650 Million Employment Tax Bill In New Jersey
New Jersey’s labor department says Uber owes the state about $650 million in unemployment and disability insurance taxes because the rideshare company has been misclassifying drivers as independent contractors. Bloomberg Law News reports: Uber and subsidiary Rasier LLC were assessed $523 million in past-due taxes over the last four years, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development said in a…
Is Andrew Yang Wrong About Robots Taking Our Jobs?
U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang “is full of it,” argues Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent, challenging Yang’s contention (in a debate Tuesday) that American jobs were being lost to automation: Following the debate, a “fact check” by the AP claimed that Yang was right and Warren wrong. “Economists mostly blame [manufacturing] job losses on automation and robots, not trade deals,”…
‘There’s an Automation Crisis Underway Right Now, It’s Just Mostly Invisible’
“There is no ‘robot apocalypse’, even after a major corporate automation event,” writes Gizmodo, citing something equally ominous in new research by a team of economists. merbs shared their report: Instead, automation increases the likelihood that workers will be driven away from their previous jobs at the companies — whether they’re fired, or moved to less rewarding tasks, or quit –…