John Yolton’s Post

"The US productivity rate jumped in the fourth quarter of 2023, creating a little buzz about whether AI, and specifically generative AI (gen AI), is showing up in the output numbers. Then, the rate slowed sharply in the first quarter of 2024, suggesting that it might be too soon to see dramatic productivity gains from AI and gen AI. "While there isn’t a clear trend yet, it’s likely that a mix of technology—from old-fashioned analysis of high-quality data to machine learning and other large language models—is positive for productivity. Tech can help workers achieve better results in the same or less amount of time, and, yes, gen AI has been powering automation gains for some time. "That’s one part of a more robust productivity scenario. The other is that companies are figuring out the postpandemic hybrid model that works best for them. It’s typically a flexible model whereby people can be in the office working with colleagues in person some of the time and be remote other times. When done correctly, this model typically results in higher productivity than would a mandate that forces employees to always be on-site or never on-site, McKinsey research shows." #productivity

"Across the United States, manufacturing companies in most sectors are struggling to find enough personnel to make, pack, and ship their products. Manufacturing job openings have been increasing steadily since 2010 and have grown even more rapidly after the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of manufacturing employees has remained stable. Today the openings remain high: double the amount of average prepandemic levels. "This environment doesn’t just create headaches for HR departments. Talent shortages have a range of unsavory knock-on effects. In 2023, turnover rates—traditionally high across manufacturing jobs—reached 36.6 percent, on average, in the manufacturing sector.1 That increases training and supervision costs and makes it more challenging to achieve consistent levels of quality and productivity. Labor is getting costlier, too. Manufacturing labor rates have been rising steadily since 2010, and the pace of labor cost inflation has also picked up in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic. "The manufacturing sector is no stranger to automation, but historically, few manufacturers have used the approach to target labor shortages. Instead, companies tend to look at automation to improve quality or to address specific health and safety issues. "We believe that attitude may need to change. A smarter, more flexible, and more holistic approach to automation could be a powerful way to address talent challenges." #labor #automation

"The U.S. population is aging, and millions of baby boomers retire each year. We can expect that absent immigration, we would have a decreasing working-age population and shrinking employment for decades to come—especially considering the low fertility rate. This is already happening in Japan and will soon happen in many European countries. "Meantime, millions of jobs have been added for foreign-born workers since 2019. The majority of these immigrants were in the U.S. prior to Covid, but another roughly 10 million have arrived since then, according to the Congressional Budget Office. These newly arrived immigrants are the main reason the U.S. economy has defied pessimistic forecasts, with 200,000 jobs added a month, real growth in gross domestic product at 3% in the past year, and an inflation rate that has fallen dramatically in the past few years. The biggest factor behind this strong economic performance is immigration. "But aren’t immigrants taking jobs from native-born workers? The answer is no, as a simple statistic—the employment rate for native-born workers 25 to 54—demonstrates. These workers are in what economists call their “prime age.” Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2019, before the pandemic, the employment rate for prime-age workers was 82%. Today, that rate is even higher, at 83%. Focusing on this age group is an effective way to control for demographic shifts. Even if the employment rate goes up for every age group, it can still go down overall if the share of older workers, whose employment rates are lower, grows. And that’s what is happening with the native population. "Immigrants aren’t merely workers competing for a fixed number of jobs. They’re also consumers who generate demand and the need for more jobs." #immigration

"Almost 50 years of excavation and research have unveiled the story of a catastrophic event and its aftermath, which took place in a Nebraska that nobody would recognize—one where species like rhinoceros, camels, and saber-toothed deer were a common sight. "But to understand that story, we have to set the stage. The area we know today as Ashfall Fossil Beds was actually a waterhole during the Miocene, one frequented by a diversity of animals. We know this because there are fossils of those animals in a layer of sand at the very bottom of the waterhole, a layer that was not impacted by the supervolcanic eruption. "Rick Otto was one of the students who excavated fossils in 1978. He became Ashfall’s superintendent in 1991 and retired in late 2023. “There were animals dying a natural death around the Ashfall waterhole before the volcanic ash storm took place,” Otto told Ars, which explains the fossils found in that sand. After being scavenged, their bodies may have been trampled by some of the megafauna visiting the waterhole, which would have “worked those bones into the sand.” #fossils

"The paradox of the modern white-collar worker is that she is simultaneously more and less alone than her analogue in any previous generation. On a given weekday, the share of the labor force working from home is roughly four times higher than it was before the pandemic. At no other point in modern history have so many workers spent so much time in a room by themselves during the weekday. "But how much of that time is truly alone—in the absence of other people’s faces and voices? By some measures, our colleagues are with us more than ever, whether or not we’d like it that way. The share of the typical white-collar workday spent in meetings has steadily increased for the past few decades, and it continues to grow by the year. "Official data on the time we spend in meetings are hard to come by. We don’t have federal calculations for, say, GMP: gross meetings prescheduled. But the private data suggest that we are deluged. In 2016, a small group of work researchers calculated that time spent in meetings had increased by 50 percent since the 1990s. “Collaboration is taking over the workplace,” they wrote in an article in Harvard Business Review. “Buried under an avalanche of requests for input or advice," some workers were spending so much time in meetings, taking calls, and combing through their inbox that their most “critical work” often had to wait until they were home. Wall-to-wall meetings from 9 to 5 were pushing any creative or individual work to some period after dinner."

Data analysis can indicate many things to many people, based upon their perspective.

"[And] divided we certainly think we are. The only thing Americans seem to agree on is that Americans cannot agree on anything. It’s hardly worth summarizing the headlines about doom and radicalization. In the prelude to a November ballot featuring the candidate synonymous with polarization, all the dapple and nuance of life is once again being reduced to a binary. Choose a side: red or blue. "Yet in the wintry interval between Jan. 6 and Inauguration Day 2021, that Populace survey, dubbed the American Aspirations Index, found “stunning agreement” on national goals across every segment of the U.S. population, including, to a significant extent, among those who voted for Donald Trump and those who voted for Joe Biden. On the few points where the survey registered disagreement (notably, on immigration and borders), the dissent was intense. But intense disagreement was the exception, not the rule. "Maybe, they suggest, America has the wrong idea about polarization. It may not be nearly the engine we thought. It’s possible that what it produces, as much as anything, is noise." #politics

"On average, a modern antivirus app blocks 99.2% of the very few incoming threats that get past the other layers of protection. And even then, your own instincts ("Don't click that link!") are also effective. This is why the modern, fully patched consumer PC isn't really a target of the criminal gangs responsible for modern malware." #antivirus

In case you missed it. "Smurfit Kappa announced that the "scheme of arrangement" in connection with the combination of Smurfit Kappa and WestRock became effective Friday, July 5 at 5:00 p.m. (New York City time). The combination of the two companies has created Smurfit Westrock, a global leader in sustainable paper and packaging operating in 40 countries with over 500 packaging converting operations and 63 paper mills.The deal, which was officially announced on September 12, 2023, called for Smurfit Kappa (Ireland) to buy WestRock (USA) for about $11.2 billion and combine the two companies. At the time of that announcement, the companies' combined last twelve months' (as of June 30, 2023) adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA was approximately $34 billion and $5.5 billion, respectively."