News
Politico | Obama plans expansion of overtime eligibility
Obama will on Thursday direct Labor Secretary Tom Perez to raise the threshold for workers to be covered by overtime protections. The move will cover millions of employees at banks, restaurants, convenience stores and in “executive, administrative and professional” posts defined as “white collar” posts, a White House official said.
WSJ | CFOs Fear Raising Minimum Wage Could Lead to Job Losses
Duke University and CFO Magazine said U.S. chief financial officers fear that hiking the minimum wage to $10 an hour could lead to substantial job losses in the retail, service and manufacturing industries.
Econ Comments & Analysis
National Journal | Are Robots About to Take Our Jobs?
Robots have been eliciting some strong feelings lately, an irony that is surely lost on them. Economists warn that the amazing technological strides made in recent years—everything from smartphones, to automatons that can work safely on shop floors alongside humans, to driverless cars—could soon put large swaths of the workforce out of a job.
Fortune | America's labor shortage solution? Women.
Amid a looming workforce shortage, women will need to assume a significantly more prominent role in the workforce.
Bloomberg | Your Job Taught to Machines Puts Half U.S. Work at Risk
Artificial intelligence has arrived in the American workplace, spawning tools that replicate human judgments that were too complicated and subtle to distill into instructions for a computer. Algorithms that “learn” from past examples relieve engineers of the need to write out every command.
CBO | Testimony on Increasing the Minimum Wage: Effects on Employment and Family Income
Increasing the minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. Most of them would receive higher pay that would increase their family’s income, and some of those families would see their income rise above the federal poverty threshold. But some jobs for low-wage workers would probably be eliminated, the income of most workers who became jobless would fall substantially, and the share of low-wage workers who were employed would probably fall slightly.
Blogs
WSJ | Those With Jobs Are More Secure Even as Hopes Dwindle for Long-Term Unemployed
Yet another recession-triggered split in the consumer sector is becoming more evident: Higher job security among those with a job versus dwindling hope for the long-run unemployed.
