In today’s news and commentary sectoral bargaining could blunt A.I. job loss, and Gen-Z job searchers are “staring into the void.”

On October 28, the New York Times published an Opinion Video suggesting that sectoral bargaining could blunt the threat of A.I. job loss for those too young to retire and too old to pivot. The piece draws an analogy to how quasi-sectoral bargaining prevented massive job loss from the introduction of now-ubiquitous shipping containers. Before the shipping container, loading and unloading shipped cargo required a large number of workers to handle the non-standardized containers and items. But the new standardized shipping containers required only one or two workers in a crane to unload them. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represented all the west-coast longshoremen negotiated a deal across the entire sector: keep all longshoremen employed until they retire. The piece suggests that sectoral bargaining could be adopted today to prevent analogous job loss from the widespread and otherwise disruptive adoption of A.I. Though the longshoreman example dates from the 1950’s, the piece points out how Germany successfully implements sectoral bargaining, including around issues of job loss. Sectoral bargaining for W-2’d employees is illegal in the U.S., but that’s not the case for independent contractors, like gig workers. The piece suggests taking inspiration from Massachusetts, where rideshare drivers (like from Uber and Lyft) can do sectoral bargaining.

On October 28, the New York Times released an article describing the nihilist void young job-seekers face: few jobs (fewer jobs of any quality), endless applications, and soul-less A.I. interview bots. Most recent college graduates (94.3%) have a job, but many of these jobs involve coffee shops or grocery stores, which not only do not pay enough to remunerate workers for their increasingly expensive degrees but also bear little relation to the subjects passionate graduates studied. Even those who get jobs face a gauntlet full not of obstacles but of nothing at all. Applicants recount sending hundreds of applications into portals only to hear back from none. They say they feel they have been lied to and that the process is utterly humiliating. On top of this, when an application does lead to something, job-seekers now also have to contend with A.I. interview bots, either in video or over the phone. Applicants described the experience as like “floating in space,” lacking anyone to actually talk to. In sum, entry-level job searching for recent college gradates is “utterly humiliating” and “demoralizing, dehumanizing and infuriating.”