Employment

Evidently, America isn’t in IKEA’s manufacturing future …

Phillip Nones Business, Economics, Employment, Human Resources, Manufacturing , , , , , , ,
Going, going, gone …

Over the past several years, the political mantra has been that jobs are now coming back to the United States – particularly manufacturing ones.

That may well be. But this past week we’ve learned that IKEA plans to close its last remaining U.S. production facility.  The iconic home furnishings company has announced that it will be closing its manufacturing plant in Danville, Virginia by the end of the year.

The Danville plant makes wood-based furniture and furnishings for IKEA’s retail store outlets in the United States and Canada.

The reason for the plant closure, as it turns out, is a bit ironic. According to IKEA, high raw materials costs in North America are triggering the move, because those costs are actually significantly lower in Europe than they are here.  Even accounting for other input costs like labor that are higher in Europe, shifting production to Europe will keep product prices lower for U.S. retailers, IKEA claims.

So much for the notion that imports from Europe are overpriced compared to domestically produced ones!

The Danville plant isn’t even that old, either. Far from being some multi-story inefficient dinosaur left over from a half-century ago, the manufacturing facility opened only in 2008, making it only about a decade old.  At its peak the plant employed around 400 people.

IKEA made staff cuts or around 20% earlier in the year, before following up with this latest announcement that will wipe out 300 more jobs in a community that can scarcely withstand such large economic shocks.

With the closure of Danville, IKEA will still have more than 40 production plants operating around the world. It employs around 20,000 workers in those plants (out of a total workforce of ~160,000, most of which are employed in the company’s vast retail and distribution business activities).

So, it doesn’t appear that IKEA will be exiting the manufacturing sector anytime soon.  It’s just that … those manufacturing activities no longer include the United States.

As a certain well-known U.S. political leader might say, “Sad!”

What are the most stressful jobs in America?

Phillip Nones Business, Economics, Employment, Human Resources, Media, Social Commentary , , , ,

Soldier, firefighter and police officer positions are obvious, but jobs in media are right up there, too.

It’s human nature to complain about workplace stress. But which jobs are the ones that actually carry the most stress?

If you ask most people, they’d probably cite jobs in the military, police and firefighting as particularly stressful ones because of the inherent dangers of working on the job. Airline pilots would be up there as well.

And yes, those jobs do rank the highest among the many jobs surveyed about by employment portal CareerCast in its newest research on the topic. But of the other jobs that make the “Top 10 most stressful” list, several of them might surprise you:

Most Stressful: CareerCast Stress Scores by Profession (2019)

#1. Enlisted military personnel (E3, 4 years experience): 73

#2. Firefighter:  72

#3. Airline pilot:  61

#4. Police officer:  52

#5. Broadcaster:  51

#6. Event coordinator:  51

#7. News reporter:  50

#8. PR executive:  49

#9. Senior corporate executive:  49

#10. Taxi driver:  48

According to the CareerCast research findings, based on an evaluation of 11 potential stress factors including meeting deadlines, job hazards, physical demands and public interaction requirements, more than three-fourths of respondents in the 2019 survey rated their job stress at 7 or higher on a 10-point scale.

The most common stress contributors cited were “meeting deadlines’ (~38% of respondents) and “interacting with the public” (~14%).

Upon reflection, it’s perhaps understandable why workers in media positions feel like they are under particular stress – what with “fake news” claims and a constant barrage of criticism from both the left and the right which can go beyond being simply irritants into some much more stress-inducing.

What if someone wanted to make a career change and switch to a job that’s at the opposite end of the stress scale? CareerCast has identified those positions, too.  Here are the “least stressful” jobs as found in its 2019 research results:

Least Stressful: CareerCast 2019 Stress Score by Profession

#1. Diagnostic medical sonographer:  5

#2. Compliance officer:  6

#3: Hair stylist:  7

#4. Audiologist:  7

#5. University professor:  8

#6. Medical records technician:  9

#7. Jeweler:  9

#8: Operations research analyst:  9

#9. Pharmacy technician:  9

#10. Massage therapist:  10

Interestingly, one might assume that the most stressful jobs in America would carry a commensurate salary premium, but that doesn’t turn out to be the case.  The average median salary for the Top 10 “most stressful” jobs in America is hardly distinguishable from those of the Top 10 “least stressful” jobs – differing by only around 4%.  It seems like those latter workers are onto something!

More information about the CareerCast findings can be viewed here.

Reuters: In 2019, publishers will experience “the biggest wave of layouts in years” … and massive burnout among the journalists who remain.

Phillip Nones Content Creation and Content Management, Economics, Employment, Human Resources, Media, Media Consumption, Publishing, Social Commentary , , , , , ,

The bad news continues for the publishing industry in 2019.

I’ve blogged before about the employment picture in journalism, which has been pretty ugly for the past decade.   And just when it seems that news in the publishing industry couldn’t get much worse … along comes a new study that further underscores the systemic problems the industry faces.

The results from a recent Reuters survey of publishers worldwide point to declines that will only continue in 2019.  In fact, Reuters is predicting that the industry will experience its largest wave of layoffs in years, coming off of a decade of already-steadily shrinking numbers.

The main cause is the continuing struggle to attract ad revenues – revenues that have been lost to the 600-lb. gorillas in the field – particularly Facebook, Google and Amazon.

Growing subscription revenue as opposed to a failing attempt to attract advertising dollars is the new focus, but that will be no panacea, according Nic Newman, a senior research associate at Reuters:

“Publishers are looking to subscriptions to make up the difference, but the limits of this are likely to become apparent in 2019.”

In addition to boosting subscription revenue, publishers are looking to display advertising, native advertising and donations to help bankroll their businesses, but advertising is the main focus of revenue generation for only about one in four publishers — a far cry from just a few years ago.

Putting it all together, Reuters predicts that it will lead to the largest wave of publishing job layoffs “in years” – and this in an industry where employment has been shrinking for some time now.

With yet more layoffs on the horizon, it’s little wonder that the same Reuters research finds employee burnout growing among the employees who remain. As Newman states:

“The explosion of content and the intensity of the 24-hour news cycle have put huge pressure on individual journalists over the last few years, with burnout concerns most keenly felt in editorial roles.”

A major reason why:  Even more is being asked from the employee who remain – and who are already stretched.

Journalism salaries are middling even in good times – which these certainly are not.  How many times can an employee be asked to “do more with less” and actually have it continue to happen?

Even the bragging rights of journalists are being chipped away, with more of them relegated to spending their time “aggregating” or “curating” coverage by other publishers instead of conducting their own first-hand reporting. That translates into perceptions of lower professional status as well.

In such an environment, it isn’t surprising to find editorial quality slipping, contributing to a continuing downward spiral as audiences notice the change — and no doubt some turn elsewhere for news.

Last but not least, there’s the bias perception issue. Whether it’s true or not, some consumers of the news suspect that many publishers and journalists slant their news reporting.  This creates even more of a dampening effect, even though in difficult times, the last thing publishers need is to alienate any portion of their audience.

How have your periodical and news reading habits changed in the past few years? Do you continue to “pay” for news delivery or have you joined the legions of others who have migrated to consuming free content in cyberspace?

(For more details from the Reuters research, you can sign up here to access the report.)

How disruptive will artificial intelligence be to the jobs we know?

Phillip Nones Economics, Education, Employment, Human Resources, Social Commentary , , , , , ,

With artificial intelligence seemingly affecting everything it touches, one might wonder what AI’s impact will be on the employment picture in the years ahead.

It’s something that AI expert and author Kai-Fu Lee has thought about in depth. Lee is the former president of Google China and the author of the best-selling book AI Superpowers:  China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order.

Recently, Lee published a column in which he described ten job categories that he feels are “safe” for human workers – regardless of how the AI world may develop around us.

His list is predicated on several fundamental weaknesses Lee sees with AI in handling certain aspects of job performance. Those weaknesses include:

  • An inability to create, conceptualize or manage complex strategic thinking
  • Difficulty handling complex work that requires precise hand-eye coordination
  • An inability to deal with unknown or unstructured spaces
  • The inability to feel empathy and compassion … and to react accordingly
Kai-Fu Lee

In short, Lee discerns a particular weakness in AI’s ability to perform “humanistic” tasks – ones that are personal, creative and compassionate.  Hence, the type of jobs that rely on such qualities will be safer from disruption, he believes.

As for career categories that Lee singles out as generally safe from AI disruption, he cites these ten in particular:

Computer Science – Lee predicts that a substantial portion of computer engineers, IT administrators and technology consultants will continue operate in job functions that aren’t automated by technology.

Criminal Law – The legal profession won’t be adversely affected, considering the persuasive powers that are needed to sway juries with legal arguments.  However, some paralegal tasks such as document review will likely migrate to AI applications.

Management – Simply put, there are too many “moving parts” to management – and aspects that require human interaction, values and decision-making – to make it a field that’s amenable to AI.  Of course, if a manager is more along the lines of a bureaucrat carrying out set orders, that type of job may be more susceptible to AI disruption.

Medical Care – Lee envisions a symbiotic relationship between humans and AI — the latter of which can help with the analytical and administrative aspects of healthcare but cannot handle most other healthcare responsibilities.

Physical Therapy – Dexterity is a challenge for AI, which makes it unlikely for AI to replace jobs in this field (also including massage therapy).

Psychiatry – Positions in this category, which encompass social work and marriage counseling in addition to strict psychiatry, require keen emotional intelligence which is the domain of humans.

R&D (particularly in AI-related field) – While some entry-level R&D positions will become automated, increased demand for R&D talent will likely outnumber the jobs replaced by AI.

Science – According to Lee, while AI will be of tremendous benefit to scientists in terms of testing hypotheses, it will be an amplification of the discipline rather than taking the place of human creativity in the sciences.

Teaching – While AI will be a valuable tool for teachers and schools, instruction will still be oriented around helping students figure out their interests and providing mentorship – qualities that AI lacks.

Writing – Specifically fiction and other creative writing, because “storytelling” is an aspect of writing that AI has difficulty emulating.

So, there you have it – Kai-Fu-Lee’s fearless predictions about the job categories that will remain safe in an increasingly AI world. Can you think of some other categories?  Please share your thoughts and perspectives with other readers.

Rough commutes are taking a toll on employees.

Phillip Nones Business, Employment, Social Commentary , , , ,

I wonder how many people chafe at the long commutes they face to-and-from work each day?

In my case, the work commute is a little lengthy, but at least I’m in the car, moving.  Other people I know deal with traffic gridlock, which is as frustrating as it can be soul-crushing.

Several others brave the elements with public transportation — transferring across several bus routes in hour-long commutes that could otherwise be completed in one-third the time.

As it turns out, there’s a good deal of restiveness when it comes to work commutes. Employment and staffing firm Robert Half Associates found this out when it surveyed ~2,800 working adults earlier this year across 28 U.S. urban markets.

Robert Half discovered that nearly one in four of the workers surveyed have quit at least one job during the course of their careers because of inordinately long or difficult commuting times. And among the 28 urban markets studied, the highest incidence of changing jobs because of a problem commute were for workers residing in the Chicago, Miami, New York and San Francisco metro areas.

Interestingly, it’s younger workers (those between the ages of 18 and 35) who are the most likely to have left jobs because of a bad commute. Is it because of raising young families, or simply wanting more unfettered free time?

As for commuting trends in these urban markets, about one in five of the respondents surveyed report that their commute has become worse in the past five years. On the positive side, twice that percentage report that their commute has actually improved, while the balance report little or no change in their commuting conditions.

San Francisco and Austin residents report worsening work commutes, whereas workers in Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Charlotte are most likely to report that their commutes have improved over the past five years.

The Robert Half survey results underscore the view that rough commutes can have a major negative impact on morale – and ultimately, on employees’ decisions to stay with or leave their place of employment.

No wonder a growing number of companies are offering nontraditional employment programs — where showing up at the office daily is no longer the only way to be on the payroll.  We’ll probably see more of these arrangements in the years ahead.

Grunts and groans in the e-mail sector.

Phillip Nones Business, Employment, Marketing, Media , ,

Want to work as a drone for middling pay? Then a job in e-mail marketing may be right for you!

There’s an oft-repeated axiom that success in business is 20% inspiration and 80% perspiration.

If that’s the case, then the field of e-mail marketing is proving the rule – in spades.

Recently, e-mail service provider MessageGears surveyed workers in the business-to-consumer e-mail enterprise space. All survey respondents worked in companies that deploy 10 million or more e-mails per month.  More to the point, two thirds of the respondents worked in companies that send more than 50 million e-mails monthly.

So, we’re talking about companies that are on their game when it comes to the e-mail discipline – presumably aware of the latest operational and analytical tools to make their businesses as efficient as possible.

Here’s what MessageGears discovered in its survey:

  • More than 90% of respondents that have purely strategic roles in e-mail marketing are “very satisfied” with their jobs … and ~81% would again choose the e-mail discipline as a career.
  • More than two-thirds of respondents who are unhappy with their jobs spend 50% or more of their time on operational work tasks … and half of those would choose a different career if they were starting over.

Clearly, the creative and strategic parts of e-mail marketing are more popular than the operational aspects. Indeed, respondents rated the following job tasks the most fulfilling ones personally:

  • Designing customer-centric e-mails
  • Creating e-mail content
  • Devising new ways to engage with customers via e-mail communications

On the other hand, the lowest marks were recorded for these tasks:

  • E-mail testing
  • Analytics
  • Data segmenting

Unfortunately, it’s these latter types of tasks that take up the majority of daily job responsibilities for many workers in the e-mail sector: According to the survey results, nearly half of the workers spend more time on testing, analytics and data segmenting than they do on anything else.

MessageGears claims that there’s a direct link between the heavy proportion of operational tasks and the lack of creativity and strategic thinking in the field of e-mail.

Whether this linkage results in a loss of efficiency may be open to question … but what it does suggest is that working in e-mail isn’t the most personally fulfilling path for a marketing career – at least for most people.

More about the MessageGears survey results can be accessed here.

Working hard … yet hardly getting ahead.

Phillip Nones Demographics, Education, Employment, Human Resources, Social Commentary , , , , , ,

Many full-time workers in the 25-35 age group with college training don’t need reminding that they’re struggling to balance paying for student loans while at the same time attempting to have decent housing and handling their day-to-day expenses.

I’m not in that age group, but our two children are – and I can see from their friends and work colleagues just how much of a challenge it is for many of them to balance these competing necessities.

One way to deal with the challenge is to settle for the sardine-like living arrangements one encounters in quite a few urban areas, with anywhere from three to six people residing in the same (medium-sized) apartment or (small) house.

Somehow, things just didn’t see so difficult for me “back in the day.” Of course, the entirety of my student loans following college amounted to a monthly payment of $31.28, with seven years to pay it off.

First apartment — a $185 per month rental.

And my first apartment – a one-bedroom flat in an elegant 1920’s building, complete with a beautiful lobby and old-fashioned glam elevator, cost me a mere $185 per month.

Not only that, it was only a five-minute bus ride to my downtown banking job.

Now, a newly released analysis published by the American Consumer’s Newsletter helps quantify the different reality for today’s younger workers.

What the data show is that a college degree does continue to provide higher earnings for younger workers compared to those without one.

But … it also reveals that adjusted for inflation, their earnings are lower than their college-educated counterparts in the past.

According to a National Center for Education Statistics analysis as published by the AC Newsletter, here’s a summary of the median earnings differences for male full-time workers in the 25-34 age cohort, comparing 2016 to the year 2000 in inflation-adjusted dollars:

  • Master’s or higher degree: $71,640 … down 6.4% from 2000
  • Bachelor’s degree: $56,960 … down 8.8%
  • Associate’s degree: $43,000 … down 11.8%
  • Some college, but no degree: $37,980 … down 14.3%
  • High school degree: $34,750 … down 13.6%
  • High school dropout: $28,560 … up 2.8%

Thus, among full-time male workers across all education levels, only high school dropouts have experienced a real increase in earnings between 2000 and 2016.

Among female workers, the trends are a little better, but still hardly impressive – and they also start from lower 2000 income levels to begin with:

  • Master’s or higher degree: $57,690 … down 0.5% from 2000
  • Bachelor’s degree: $44,990 … down 7.5%
  • Associate’s degree: $31,870 … down 12.0%
  • Some college, but no degree: $29,980 … down 13.8%
  • High school degree: $28,000 … down 7.2%
  • High school dropout: $21,900 … up 5.0%

What’s even more challenging for workers carrying student loan debt is that those debt levels are higher than ever – often substantially so.

According to a Brookings Institution comparative study, fewer than 5% of students leaving school in 2000 carried more than $50,000 in student loan debt. In inflation-adjusted terms, by 2014, that percentage had risen to ~17%.

Looked at another way, ~40% of borrowers are carrying student loan debt balances exceeding $25,000. It doesn’t take a finance whiz to figure out how big of a hit that is out of a worker’s paycheck.

It makes the some of today’s realities: people living at home longer following college; having frat- or sorority-like living arrangements; putting off plans to purchase a home, or even putting off marriage plans – all the more understandable.

And I’m not exactly sure what the remedy is, either. When it comes to overburdened education debt, it isn’t as if people can go back and rewrite the script very easily.

Where Robots Are Getting Ready to Run the Show

Phillip Nones Business, Economics, Employment, Human Resources, Manufacturing , , , , , , , ,

The Brookings Institution has just published a fascinating map that tells us a good deal about what is happening with American manufacturing today.

Headlined “Where the Robots Are,” the map graphically illustrates that as of 2015, nearly one-third of America’s 233,000+ industrial robots are being put to use in just three states:

  • Michigan: ~12% of all industrial robots working in the United States
  • Ohio: ~9%
  • Indiana: ~8%

It isn’t surprising that these three states correlate with the historic heart of the automotive industry in America.

Not coincidentally, those same states also registered a massive lurch towards the political part of the candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election who spoke most vociferously about the loss of American manufacturing jobs.

The Brookings map, which plots industrial robot density per 1,000 workers, shows that robots are being used throughout the country, but that the Great Lakes Region is home to the highest density of them.

Toledo, OH has the honor of being the “Top 100” metro area with the highest distribution of industrial robots: nine per 1,000 workers.  To make it to the top of the list, Toledo’s robot volume jumped from around 700 units in 2010 to nearly 2,400 in 2015, representing an average increase of nearly 30% each year.

For the record, here are the Top 10 metropolitan markets among the 100 largest, ranked in terms of their industrial robot exposure.  They’re mid-continent markets all:

  • Toledo, OH: 9.0 industrial robots per 1,000 workers
  • Detroit, MI: 8.5
  • Grand Rapids, MI: 6.3
  • Louisville, KY: 5.1
  • Nashville, TN: 4.8
  • Youngstown-Warren, OH: 4.5
  • Jackson, MS: 4.3
  • Greenville, SC: 4.2
  • Ogden, UT: 4.2
  • Knoxville, TN: 3.7

In terms of where industrial robots are very low to practically non-existent within the largest American metropolitan markets, look to the coasts:

  • Ft. Myers, FL: 0.2 industrial robots per 1,000 workers
  • Honolulu, HI: 0.2
  • Las Vegas, NV: 0.2
  • Washington, DC: 0.3
  • Jacksonville, FL: 0.4
  • Miami, FL: 0.4
  • Richmond, VA: 0.4
  • New Orleans, LA: 0.5
  • New York, NY: 0.5
  • Orlando, FL: 0.5

When one consider that the automotive industry is the biggest user of industrial robots – the International Federation of Robotics estimates that the industry accounts for nearly 40% of all industrial robots in use worldwide – it’s obvious how the Midwest region could end up being the epicenter of robotic manufacturing activity in the United States.

It should come as no surprise, either, that investments in robots are continuing to grow. The Boston Consulting Group has concluded that a robot typically costs only about one-third as much to “employ” as a human worker who is doing the same job tasks.

In another decade or so, the cost disparity will likely be much greater.

On the other hand, two MIT economists maintain that the impact of industrial robots on the volume of available jobs isn’t nearly as dire as many people might think. According to Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo:

“Indicators of automation (non-robot IT investment) are positively correlated or neutral with regard to employment. So even if robots displace some jobs in a given commuting zone, other automation (which presumably dwarfs robot automation in the scale of investment) creates many more jobs.”

What do you think? Are Messrs. Acemoglu and Restrepo on point here – or are they off by miles?  Please share your thoughts with other readers.

A Generational Shift within the American Workforce

Phillip Nones Demographics, Employment, Social Commentary , , , , , , , , ,

bmI’ve blogged before about the cultural differences between older and younger Americans in the workforce. Some observers consider the differences to be of historic significance compared to previous eras, due to the confluence of various “macro” forces driving change at an extraordinary pace.

And somewhere along the way when few were looking, the millennial generation has now become the largest cohort in the American workforce.

And it isn’t even a close call: As of this year, millennials make up nearly 45% of all American workers, whereas baby boomer generation now comprises just over a quarter of the workforce.

According to a new report by management training and consulting firm RainmakerThinking titled The Great Generational Shift, there are actually seven groups of people currently in the workplace at this moment in time:

  • Pre-Baby Boomers (born before 1946): ~1% of the American workforce
  • Baby Boomers first wave (born 1946-1954): ~11%
  • Baby Boomers second wave (born 1955-1964): ~16%
  • GenXers (born 1965-1977): ~27%
  • Millennials first wave (born 1978-1989): ~27%
  • Millennials second wave (born 1990-2000): ~17%
  • Post-Millennials (born after 2000): ~1%

roowPersonally, I don’t know anyone born before 1946 who is still in the workforce, but there are undoubtedly a few of them — one out of every 100, to be precise.

But the older members of the Baby Boomer generation are fast cycling out of the workforce as well, with more than 10,000 of them turning 70 years old every day.

By the year 2020, the “first wave” Boomers are expected to be only around 6% of the workforce.  Meanwhile, Millennials are on track to represent more than 50% of the workforce by 2020.

Now, that makes some of us feel old!

The Great Generational Shift report can be downloaded here.

For physicians on the front lines, burnout is a real concern.

Phillip Nones Business, Employment, Social Commentary , , , , , , , , ,

bdoIf you’re like many people, you may have begun to notice some telling changes in the “atmospherics” you encounter in your visits to the doctor’s office.

Perhaps the signs are just subtle, but things seem to be a little more stressed in the office – and a little less comforting for patients.

With the big changes happening in how healthcare services are delivered and how care providers are compensated, perhaps those changes are to be expected.

But a new survey of more than 500 physicians by InCrowd, a Boston-based market intelligence company focusing on the healthcare, pharmaceutical and life sciences fields, points to some unwelcome “collateral damage” that has to be concerning to everyone.

According to the InCrowd research results, three-fourths of the physicians surveyed do not feel that their healthcare facility or practice is doing enough to address the issue of physician burnout.

For the purposes of the research, burnout was defined as “decreased enthusiasm for work, depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and a low sense of personal accomplishment.”

If three-quarters of the physicians think that too little attention is being paid to burnout issues, that may be one explanation for the changes in the “dynamics” many patients sense when they pay a visit to their doctor.

This doesn’t mean that the majority of physicians feel that they themselves have experienced burnout. But in two particular physician categories – emergency care and primary care – nearly 60% of the physicians surveyed reported that they had personally experienced burnout.

And most of the remaining respondents know other physicians who have experienced the same.

While burnout may be a more extreme condition, for many physicians the average day presents any number of challenges and frustrations. Nearly four in ten respondents reported that they “feel frustrated” by their work at least a few times weekly — or even every day.

dtThe two biggest contributors to this frustration? Time pressures, and working with electronic medical records.

Perhaps the most startling finding from the InCrowd survey is that ~58% of the physician respondents say that they’re either unsure or wouldn’t recommend a career in medicine to a family member or child.

To me, that finding says volumes. When a profession goes from being the object of aspiration to something to be avoided … we really do have a problem.

What’s been your experience at your doctor’s office on recent visits?  Do you sense a degree of tension or stress that’s more than before?  Please share your thoughts with other readers.