The Labor Market of Tomorrow

July 28, 2025

Good morning!

By good fortune it’s happening on a Monday morning:  Jim and Mo have been married for 41 years. When does Georgia Peach Season begin?  Can’t wait. Did you know commercial helicopters are used in the growing of perfectly ripe, luscious, unbroken-skins cherries from Washington? I didn’t either.  Fascinating what we don’t know about modern agriculture. A cherry must remain dry as it ripens — and if it doesn’t, the delicate skin will crack — and so wind is needed to keep the cherries dry… hence, helicopters. And, how about that Minnesota Sweet Corn?  How much longer must we wait? “Why are stocks up?  Nobody knows.  A torrent of bad news hasn’t been enough to sink the market.”  (Jakab)

• “I don’t feel valued by leadership.” = 41% of the work force.
  • “I don’t feel valued by the organization I serve.” = 40% of the work force.
  • “I’m looking for a better job.” = 53% of the work force.
  • Name the profession/ vocation:  ______________________ (Answer at the bottom)
• Based upon where my children and grandchildren live, I could emotionally and logically be cheering for eight different baseball teams — not counting Town Ball.
  • Help me to decide where the smart money should be — and the best  long shot:
    • Minnesota Twins = 10 games back in the AL Central
    • Chicago Cubs = leading the NL Central tied with Milwaukee — +6.5
    • Chicago White Sox = 22.5 games back in the AL Central
    • New York Yankees = 5.5 games behind Toronto in the East
    • New York Mets = Leading the NL East with 62-44 on a winning streak
    • Toronto Blue Jays = currently +5.5 leading the American League East
    • Washington Nationals = in the NL East basement -18.5 (Will there be a name change as part of the punishment?!)
    • Baltimore Orioles = 15.5 games back in the AL East
• You get different answers when you search for these data.
  • According to multiple sources, Luxembourg is the richest country in the world with ~$141,000 GDP per person.
  • In second place, is Singapore at ~$132,000
  • Ireland, perhaps counterintuitively, is in third place at ~$125,000
  • Qatar comes in at #4 = ~$113,000
  • And, in fifth place is Switzerland = ~$85,000
  • The United States is ninth or tenth depending upon your source of data, with perhaps fittingly, ~$76,000  (Forbes, 2025)
• Budget airlines have more than doubled their market share in Europe over the last 15 years — while losing a tiny share on the continent of Africa over that same time.  (Curley, Etc., et al.)
  • In North America it was a 50% increase — while in the Middle East, the increase was 200%, three times the share 15 years earlier.
  • Fascinating.
  • Are we all happy to get more and more squished into the jet in order to save a few dollars?
  • Low- and ultra-low-cost airlines have tended to earn better returns than full-service carriers,
  • but their performance has slowed in the United States.  (Ibid.)
• The following edited snippets are from an interview with Svenja Gudell, Chief Economist for job search giant, Indeed.
  • She runs the Indeed Hiring Lab.
  • Indeed aspires to be at the forefront of everything happening with the labor market.
    • “One word sums it up best, ‘uncertainty’.  That’s because a few trends are colliding at the same time:
    1. Politics
    2. Leftover impacts from the plague
    3. Demographic shifts
    4. Aging economies and shrinking labor forces; e.g., Japan
    5. Artificial intelligence — and especially agentic artificial intelligence.”  (Gudell, 2025)
  • “The level of uncertainty we’re dealing with in today’s economic market is incredibly high.”  (Ibid.)
  • “I think this is the first time we’ve seen a disruption be not only the disruptor, but also potentially the vehicle to help you live through that disruption.”
    • (Did you follow that?!  She’s speaking about artificial intelligence.)
  • Among the things we’ve started to pick up on is a lot of folks working at McDonald’s are listing artificial intelligence skills on their resume.
  • So, I think we’ll start to notice people are getting in there and saying, ‘How can I use this tool to help me perform better in the labor market’?
  • For job seekers, number one is always compensation.  Everyone wants a better pay package.
  • But, particularly for women, the number-two reason for switching jobs remains flexibility —
    • — including either remote or hybrid working arrangements.
  • The number of jobs that offer remote work in the U.S. has been steadily declining…
  • It’s always surprising to me how headlines-driven we are…
  • … a lot of people really tend to focus on the short term, the now, and not really on having a good, long-term approach.
  • The data are always old, even when the new data are released, they’re old… the impact won’t be known for months down the road and people think today’s headlines tell the whole story.
  • Surprise, surprise, Microsoft Office is still the number-one mentioned technological tool that every job wants out there; it’s really surprising.
  • We are seeing generative artificial skills being named as a job requirement on one percent… but, that is still a big jump…
    • The Labor Market of Tomorrow
      1. The race against an aging work force
      2. There are insufficient numbers of younger workers to take the places of older people who choose to no longer work
      3. Artificial intelligence… we don’t know yet, but yet we do…
      4. “You’ve got to have more than your big toe dipped into the artificial intelligence pool to know what’s going on.”
      5. Employers are slightly less afraid of it than they were…
• Answer to up above:  It’s Nursing
  • U.S. health care organizations could save up to $700,000,000 annually — and improve care — by reducing frontline nurse turnover through strengthened manager support.
  • The best nursing managers have a presence in their units.
  • They don’t live in their offices — they are out on the floor interacting with staff and offering help, when needed.  (Berlin, Etc., et al., 2025)