Future of Work / The Economy
Digital transformation is creating a need for more great people
“These prognostications that all the innovation and the deployment of new technologies would be a big net destroyer of jobs … are proving wrong. What we are seeing is that the opposite is happening. Digital transformation is driving a ton of growth, and it is creating a need for more great people.” Joe Ucuzoglu, CEO, Deloitte U.S.
98% of small businesses say labor shortages are impacting business
The San Diego Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Update newsletter reports on a new survey from Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Business Voices found that 98% of small business owners in California say labor shortages are negatively impacting their business. 37% say they have experienced temporary business closures or have had to scale back operations due to the recent rise in COVID-19 cases.
The “Great Resignation” and why people are actually leaving their jobs
According to a story in Inc. Magazine, these are the top five predictors of why people are leaving their jobs during the “Great Resignation:”
- Toxic culture. A toxic corporate culture is by far the strongest predictor of industry-adjusted attrition and is 10 times more important than compensation in predicting turnover.
- Job insecurity and reorganization. Feeling like you could lose your job at any moment makes you start thinking about getting another job
- High levels of innovation. Innovation may be interesting and inspiring, but it can also burn people out.
- Failure to recognize performance. Feeling seen and valued when you do excellent work.
- Poor response to Covid-19. Employees who talked about their company's response to the pandemic in negative terms are more likely to quit.
Edelman Survey cites a cycle of distrust
The annual 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, created from interviews with 36,000 people in 28 countries, came up with these high-level conclusions:
- Government and media fuel a cycle of distrust.
- Failure of leadership makes distrust the default.
The solutions are to:
- Recognize business’s societal role is here to stay. People want more business leadership, not less.
- Demonstrate tangible progress. Show how the system works to restore belief in society’s ability to build a better future.
- Focus on long-term thinking over short-term gain. Solutions over divisiveness.
- Provide credible information. Trustworthy, consistent and fact-based information is critical to breaking the cycle of distrust.
Getting real about inflation
“The extraordinary $2.5 trillion in fiscal support for the U.S. economy in 2021, amounting to 11% of GDP, was far larger than any previous fiscal package since World War II. A simple fiscal multiplier would have predicted that average output in the last three quarters of 2021 would be 2-5% above pre-pandemic estimates of potential. To think that a stimulus of this magnitude would not cause inflation…(was) implausible.” Jason Furman, American economist and professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
