Labor

[The National Telecommunications and Information Administration] just announced the amounts each state and territory will receive from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. That includes $813 million for Tennessee to build future-proof networks to connect everyone in the state. Our task is simple, but it’s monumental: we are going to bridge the digital divide. For good. But we cannot reach that goal without industry stepping up.

It’s hard to calculate the number of homeless people in the US. At the end of 2022, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development placed the number around 600,000, with 60 percent living in emergency shelters, safe havens, or transitional housing. HUD counted the remaining 40 percent as unsheltered—living outside or in other places considered unfit for habitation, such as in abandoned buildings or underground. Tech permeates every step of the job-search process.

Colleges are seeing a surge in technology majors, but rural students are lagging behind on opportunities to take advantage of the growing, high-paying fields. From 2018 to 2022, Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services majors increased 23 percent, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, from 423,315 to 518,844. Rural students, however, face two pressing issues: the digital divide of internet reliability and technology access and education opportunities. The National Center for Education Statistics said that in 2019, around 76 percent of rural students

Digital equity is a core social driver of health. Digital equity refers to the condition in which all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy and economy.

In a surprising move AT&T has mandated that 60,000 managers return to work in person to one of nine of the company’s offices, despite many employees living far away from any of those locations. While the company said restructuring will help cost savings and “increase collaboration,” it has ignited outrage among employees who see it as a disguised staff reduction effort. AT&T CEO John Stankey estimated that around 15% (9,000) of the affected managers will have to choose between relocating or leaving the company.

The US Department of the Treasury approved $119.9 million in federal funds for broadband infrastructure projects in Montana and $68.3 million for multi-purpose community facility projects in North Dakota under the American Rescue Plan Act's (ARPA) Capital Projects Fund (CPF):

The world is facing a pressing need for a skilled workforce that can meet the demands of the 21st-century century economy. That’s where workforce development comes in. Louisiana's broadband office is the Louisiana Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity, or ConnectLA.

As an aging workforce and a lack of interest among young people threaten to derail nationwide broadband buildout plans, the industry’s stakeholders must come together to tackle what has become a massive fiber workforce shortage, said Deborah Kish, VP of workforce development at the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA). The Government Accountability Office estimated that around 34,000 workers might be needed in 2023 to support the government’s broadband expansion programs, depending on unpredictable project timelines. And the workforce sh

Digital technologies launched, in many ways, by the microelectronics revolution and the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) advances which ensued in the 1970s—have had a profound impact on economies around the world. increased digitalization has resulted in shifts in the nature and functionality of labor markets on both the demand and supply sides.

Across the country, broadband advocates and representatives are crunching numbers to figure out how to implement an often under-examined piece of the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program puzzle: What does digital equity look like? Passed alongside BEAD as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Digital Equity Act (DEA) provides $2.75 billion dollars that will be parsed between states and territories to help them implement digital equity plans.