Rethinking Workforce Transitions

If you work in workforce development today, you’re operating in the midst of some major turmoil.  Most places in the US face significant talent shortages, so building a more robust talent ecosystem is essential.  But this work is occurring in the midst of major short-term economic pain, wrought by tariffs, DOGE, and other uncertainty, along with major long-term challenges around AI and other new technology innovations.   While I can’t predict where all these trends may lead, I can confidently project that we’ll be seeing greater demand for retraining, reskilling, and workforce development support among a wider and more diverse set of workers, businesses, and communities.

Our workforce systems will need to evolve accordingly, and debates about what to do next are actively underway in Washington and across the US.  If you’re following these discussions, let me recommend an excellent new Brookings Institution analysis, “Workforce Capacity Development and Occupational Transitions with Dignity,” from NYU’s Arun Sundararajan. 

This is a wide-ranging piece that is tough to briefly summarize, but I’ll give it a shot.  Sundararajan notes that we are in the midst of several workforce-related transformations.  AI and other new technologies are likely to displace many workers, including many higher-skilled and mid-career workers.  These workers won’t simply be “re-skilled” and deployed in a new job or a new industry.  Instead, work transitions will become more complicated.  They will take more time, likely lead to lower incomes or increased income volatility, and may require moving from full-time traditional work to gig work.

Our current training and support systems are poorly suited for this type of complex job transition.  Sundararajan notes that effective transition efforts will now require new approaches that help people move to new regions if they so desire (housing assistance), additional income support during job transitions, and enhanced social safety net protections for independent and gig workers.  Beyond that, we’ll also need to develop new approaches targeted to helping higher skilled and mid-career workers who have generally not been a primary focus of existing workforce programs. This is a big, but sensible, menu of policy and program changes.  While the current policy environment may not be conducive to these types of innovative reforms, I’m happy to see these important ideas being put out for debate and discussion.