Technology and globalization are simultaneously creating and destroying jobs at a rapid pace. While high skill jobs and low skill jobs are growing, the loss of well-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree is disrupting the traditional path to the middle class. A recent analysis conducted by a Center for an Urban Future found that nearly 10% of jobs in New York City could be could have 80 percent of their tasks performed by a machine using technologies that already exist. A previous analysis by RPA found that the overwhelming majority of jobs at high risk of being replaced by machines are low skill jobs.
RPA’s Regional Assembly will feature a panel discussion on how to grow the middle class jobs in this new economy. New jobs are emerging in fields from technology to health care. The panel will focus on strategies to capitalize on these opportunities in an equitable way, via actions such as — land use and development policies that promote living wage jobs, recasting education and job training to continually upgrade skills, transitioning workers to new occupations as infrastructure and service delivery are modernized, and creating new types of benefits and income supports for an increasingly mobile and insecure workforce.
The panel will be moderated by Winston Fisher, Partner, Fisher Brothers and Co-Chair of New York City’s Regional Economic Development Council. Panelists include Rob Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, one of the nation’s leading experts on innovation economics and policy, Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director, New York City Taxi Workers Alliance, representing workers in an industry that has been profoundly transformed by new technology and public policies, and Aisha Glover, President & CEO, Newark Community Economic Development Corporation, who is leading efforts to make this new economy work for Newark residents and businesses.
Click here to check out RPA’s report on the future of work.
See how our thinking on the future of work shaped RPA’s positions on where and how to grow by clicking here.
To learn more about this year’s Assembly, click here.