Workers Fit for the Future: States are helping workers evolve with technology.

• Author: Hultin, Suzanne
• Position: LABOR

The way we work is evolving. Technological advances demand highly skilled workers, and gig jobs require people who can be paid by the task or project, not by the position they hold in a company. The transformation of today's workplace has left businesses, educators and policymakers playing catch-up. COVID-19 has only accelerated the pace of change.

Economists agree that technology and automation will influence nearly all occupations, but in different ways. The effects of automation will differ greatly by place, demographics and occupation, according to the Brookings Institution. New technology, for example, will have the greatest impact on manufacturing and agricultural jobs found mostly in heartland states and rural communities. Big cities and college towns, where service, creative and professional jobs are prevalent and varied, will remain relatively insulated from increasing automation.

Future-of-Work Commissions

Even before the coronavirus struck, lawmakers were considering ways to build a more resilient, flexible workforce capable of evolving as technology advances. In 2019, lawmakers in at least five states introduced legislation to create commissions or work groups to study the issue. Lawmakers in California, Hawaii and Washington, for example, passed bills creating commissions specifically to examine the effects that automation and new technology will have on their workforces and economies.

Other states' commissions are focused on finding new ways for students and adults to enter the workforce and continue developing skills needed for success in a changing environment.

New Hampshire's commission is studying career pathways, including service-year programs--full-time, often paid placements offering hands-on learning--and other educational and employment opportunities.

"We wanted to look at an alternative way for youth to build skills, learn about themselves and develop soft skills that are really applicable to the workforce," says New Hampshire Representative Matt Wilhelm (D), who sponsored the bill creating the commission. "This [bill] establishes a service-year workforce commission to study what we can do to solidify and expand pathways to post-secondary education and careers."

Rural America's Challenges

Expanding job opportunities in struggling rural communities to keep talent and jobs at home can also help build the entire state's economy. In Vermont, for example, lawmakers created the Remote Worker Grant Program in 2018 to...