Future of Work « Advance CTE Blog

Centering CTE in the Time of Disruption: A Conversation with SHRM’s Dr. Alex Alonso

Friday, May 17th, 2024

Advance CTE held a ‘fireside chat’ with Dr. Alex Alonso, Chief Knowledge Officer of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), and Advance CTE Executive Director Kate Kreamer at our 2024 Spring Meeting that saw over 200 state Career Technical Education (CTE) leaders in attendance last month.

The two tackled this burning question of the future of work: How will Career Technical Education (CTE) continue to be the solution to ensuring success and security for all learners, especially amidst the imminent impacts of AI, the green economy, and evolving workplace trends?

Key Trends for the Future of Work

Dr. Alonso first presented newly released research conducted by SHRM drawing from data collected from a vast network of 2000 HR professionals, which, with the help of LLM (Large Language Models), aggregates major trends in the future of work and identifies the challenges facing employers today. Dr. Alonso unpacked several of these major trends, including:

Balancing Operational Efficiencies and Talent Needs

The challenges and problems companies face continue to become increasingly complex. That means that as the skills gap grows, the depth of that gap, or the “skills crater,” also grows, necessitating an even greater urgency for faster and more effective skills development. At the same time, amidst current inflationary pressures, there is a growing imperative to strike a balance between ensuring fair compensation for this high-demand talent and maintaining operational efficiency.

Training an Evolving Workforce

Because employers have a renewed focus on upskilling and reskilling, steps must be taken need to ensure alignment between training programs and the evolving needs of industries. This is a critical opportunity for CTE to be a leader and to meaningfully partner with industry.

Later on, during the fireside chat, Dr. Alonso elevated that the delivery of CTE programs might need to evolve to meet these trends and demands, not just in terms of content but also in how it’s delivered. Kate noted the shifting perspective on digital apprenticeships and virtual work-based learning– what was once seen as a compromise for accessibility is now being reconsidered as a viable content delivery option, especially as more jobs transition to partial or fully virtual settings.

Realizing the Full Potential of AI

AI has changed and reshaped the way that work is happening. Because it’s evolving right before our eyes, the challenge for employers and educators is to keep pace, all the while ensuring responsible integration into the workforce, particularly given the high potential for its misuse.

These challenges all point to one major takeaway, in Dr. Alonso’s words:

Embracing Change through AI

A significant portion of the fireside chat focused on the specific challenge of realizing the full potential of AI, and the broader theme of embracing change.

It’s a common worry: the idea that AI could eliminate job opportunities. Kate raised a crucial point: How do we leverage AI to create more opportunities rather than take opportunities away?

Dr. Alonso highlighted that while many job roles may diminish due to technological advancements, even more new jobs will emerge in the economy in the coming years. His argument: AI complements human intelligence rather than replacing it. AI should be viewed as a tool to aid in the creation of these new roles in tandem with human intelligence— “AI plus HI”

This dynamic shift isn’t about a loss of jobs, instead, it’s an evolution of industries and professions. Dr. Alonso also noted the attitude toward AI is changing as well; there’s a noticeable transition from apprehension to curiosity. People are increasingly inclined to engage in dialogues about AI, recognizing its potential to enhance both their industry and personal lives.

As we embrace these challenges and opportunities, CTE has a unique opportunity and advantage to equipping the future workforce. Explore further insights on SHRM’s research in their 2023-24 State of the Workplace Report.

Preparations are underway for Advance CTE’s 2024 Fall Meeting in Phoenix, AZ, October 21-23! Visit the event page to save the date and learn more.

Layla Alagic, digital communications associate

By Layla Alagic in Advance CTE Spring Meeting
Tags: 2024 Spring Meeting, apprenticeship, Artificial Intelligence, business and industry, Future of Work, skills gap, talent pipeline, Virtual Training

Reflecting on Advance CTE-Lumina Discussion on Human Work & CTE

Monday, December 21st, 2020

Last week, Advance CTE hosted a discussion with Lumina Foundation’s President & CEO, Jamie Merisotis, on his new book, “Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines” and what it means for Career Technical Education (CTE). The conversation between Jamie Merisotis and Kimberly Green, Advance CTE’s Executive Director, was far reaching, covering topics from how we help learners gain empathy to the unlikelihood of a robot, zombie apocalypse.

A couple of key points that really stood out to me were:

The need to break down the silos of “education” and “training.” As Merisotis put it: “Neither training devoid of broader learning nor education devoid of preparation for work is going to get people what they need.” The false dichotomy that training prepares people for work and education is a more “pure” endeavor is simply holding us back and making our systems less cohesive and responsive.
The importance of building deep and abiding service into our education pathways and workplaces. This goes beyond requiring or offering community service within a CTE program or as a corporate social responsibility effort, but rather making service part of the overall lifelong learning experience. By engaging directly with those being impacted by one’s work, individuals can gain empathy and understand how to better support and serve clients going forward.
Everything we build as advocates, policymakers, industry partners or practitioners needs to have a racial equity lens. If we don’t address racial equity head on – as we have failed to do for decades – the inequities and systemic racism will only worsen.
No, the robots are not coming to take all of our jobs! Technology always creates more jobs than it destroys and supports a broader “cycle of creative destruction and renewal,” according to Merisotis. CTE must continue to be nimble and focus on those skills, competencies and functions that are uniquely “human,” including how to work along side technology.

Following the discussion, Advance CTE members broke into small-group discussions to unpack the conversation and reflect on what it meant for them and their CTE programs and policies. One discussion focused on CTE’s role in the future of work and how CTE is well positioned to take on a stronger role in these conversations given our positioning at the nexus between education and industry. CTE should be spearheading these conversations and intentionally engaging with employers to discuss how they can value their human workers differently.

There was also some healthy discussion around how prevalent “human work” will be in the future, given how many examples we still see of human work being devalued in our current workforce and economy and the ever-growing attention to being more efficient and productive and the work regularly being shifted to machines.

Finally, members dug into the challenges related to technology, recognizing we still have a lot to learn about the role of technology in teaching and learning. We need to work through the ongoing fear many have of technology and what it means for work in the future, how much the CTE field still needs to learn about emerging and cutting-edge technologies, and the fact that technology was not in place to support the transition to remote learning during COVID-19. Members also discussed the importance of ensuring equity is attended to in the design of new technologies. For example, we must have measures in place so that the algorithms within artificial intelligence programs are not perpetuating discrimination or inequities.

A special thank you to Jamie Merisotis and his team at the Lumina Foundation for partnering on such a great event for Advance CTE members!

View the recording of the full discussion here.

Kate Kreamer, Deputy Executive Director

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Webinars
Tags: Advance CTE Members, Future of Work

How to Prepare for the Future of Work

Tuesday, March 5th, 2019

Economists and futurists no longer ask what the future of work will look like, but rather when it will come and how disruptive it will be. Automation, artificial intelligence and other technological advancements are in the workplace today. Some say that innovations should be embraced and, like technological advancements in the past, the average American, and the economy as a whole, will be better off. Others issue dire warnings that automation and robotics will render many occupations obsolete and displace millions of American workers.

So which is it? The rose or the thorns?

The answer is, it’s complicated. According to the World Economic Forum, automation is expected to displace 75 million workers around the world by 2022. That’s a staggering sum — and in just four years. But the same report predicts that 133 million jobs will be created during the same period. What is almost certain is that, in the next few years, the world economy — and by extension, the American workforce — will experience a significant transformation as businesses adopt new technologies and American workers adapt and reskill to fill new jobs.

A new study out of the Boston University School of Law illuminates potential impacts of automation by examining survey data for non-financial private firms in the Netherlands. The researchers obtained data on automation expenditures for more than 36,000 firms over a 16 year period, from 2000 to 2016, in order to measure the effects of automation on employment and wages.

The researchers estimate that wages decreased for incumbent workers by about 8.2 percent over five years as a result of automation. However, recent hires experienced no wage loss and even earned 4.4 percent higher income over five years. It follows that the impact of automation will be more severe for older, more experienced workers, who at best will experience shifts in their day to day tasks and at worst will need to pursue further education, training and credentials to adapt.

For policymakers and economists, this begs the question: can anything be done to prepare for automation and new technology in the workplace?

The Brookings Institute recommends five actions to prepare for the future of work:

Embrace growth and technology, which will encourage firms to step up hiring and training new workers as the economy heats up;
Promote a constant learning mindset by expanding traditional education, reducing the financial burden for skill attainment, and fostering employer-sponsored learning opportunities;
Facilitate a smoother adjustment by investing in career counseling, retraining opportunities and unemployment support for displaced workers;
Reduce hardships for workers who are struggling through the expansion of state and federal safety net programs;
Mitigate harsh local impacts by expanding support to vulnerable regions and communities that may be hardest hit.

Automation and artificial intelligence in the workplace will augment human skill and improve productivity. New technologies like autonomous vehicles and voice recognition will make it easier for all individuals — particularly individuals with disabilities — to access work and participate in civil society. But the future of work will likely bring with it disruption and displacement, and this burden will be disproportionately borne by workers in particular industries, occupations and geographic regions. Federal, state and local policymakers should consider clear strategies to prepare for the future of work. The time to act is now.

Research Roundup

Meanwhile, here is the latest roundup of research and data related to Career Technical Education (CTE):

There’s a racial gap in CTE enrollment. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that, according to high school transcript data, white students earned more (3.2) CTE credits on average than black (2.9), Hispanic (2.6), Asian (2.2) and mixed race (2.9) students.
The American Association of Community Colleges developed an infographic based on a recent Pew Research Center study that depicts the different post-high school plans of today’s teens. One notable takeaway: 12 percent of teens plan to attend a two-year college and 4 percent plan to attend a technical or vocational school after high school.
Skills training is pretty popular with American voters. According to polling from ALG Research, with support from the National Skills Coalition, 93 percent of likely 2020 voters support increasing investments in skills and technical training.
It’s not just you — CTE is getting more popular. The American Enterprise Institute looked at media mentions of CTE between 2012 and 2018 and found that the number of articles mentioning CTE has increased by more than a hundredfold in that time.

Austin Estes, Senior Policy Associate

By admin in Research
Tags: Automation, Career Technical Education, Future of Work

Posts Tagged ‘Future of Work’