Labor

Alex Imas, based at the University of Chicago (the greatest university in the world), recently shared two things about the impact of AI on how we work: a blunt assessment that our tools for predicting what this will look like are pretty abysmal, and a “call to arms” for economists to start collecting the one type of data that could make a plan to address AI in the workforce possible at all. On our abysmal tools: consider the fact that any job is made up of individual tasks. One part of a real estate agent’s job, for example, is to ask clients what sort of property they want to buy.

This paper estimates the relationship between broadband internet speeds and the survival and employment of business establishments. The analysis combines publicly accessible broadband speed availability data from the Federal Communications Commission with microdata on over 10 million U.S. businesses from the National Establishment Time Series database across 2015 to 2020. We use a two-stage Heckman procedure to identify and correct for attrition bias resulting from businesses that exit the dataset over the study period. Probit models estimate business survival in the first stage.

Sens Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Reps Susie Lee (D-NV) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) introduced bipartisan and bicameral legislation to support and expand cybersecurity apprenticeships. The Cyber Ready Workforce Act directs the Department of Labor to establish a grant program to support the creation, implementation, and expansion of registered apprenticeship programs in cybersecurity. 

We propose that AI automation is a continuum between: (i) crashing waves where AI capabilities surge abruptly over small sets of tasks, and (ii) rising tides where the increase in AI capabilities is more continuous and broad-based. We test for these effects in preliminary evidence from an ongoing evaluation of AI capabilities across over 3,000 broad-based tasks derived from the U.S. Department of Labor O*NET categorization that are text-based and thus LLM-addressable.

Labor market shortages in rural spaces have been a subject of inquiry for several years. Certain conversations intensified after the Great Recession and COVID-19, but the primary forces reshaping rural job markets had been building for decades. Continuing evolutions in U.S. labor markets, however, indicate positive opportunities for rural spaces with robust broadband connectivity, supplemented by active engagement among different sectors, including K-12 education and upskilling for current workers, all aimed at facilitating tech-based and knowledge economy jobs. As of January 2026, U.S.

Enterprise leaders operate in an increasingly complex digital environment with the scale and sophistication of new threats looming large, making cyber resilience a prerequisite of doing business. Security breaches have shown just how disruptive incidents can be, placing operations, customer trust and brand reputation at risk.

The Federal Communications Commission voted to launch a new proceeding looking into the use of offshore call centers. The FCC will seek comment on proposals that would encourage businesses to bring call center jobs back to the U.S.

Discussions about AI’s impact on the workforce tend to focus on what the new technology will mean for white-collar workers, many with higher incomes. But new research by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco shifts the conversation by examining on-the-job exposure to AI among lower income workers. AI isn’t just a story about high-earning knowledge workers. It’s also reshaping the jobs of low-income workers.

Hollywood is investing heavily in AI, positioning it as infrastructure, not as a replacement for c

A federal official recently added a new wrinkle to Pennsylvania’s plan to use more than $700 million to expand high-speed internet access across the commonwealth.