Disrupting Unemployment — the Innovation for Jobs Summit at Google […]

Disrupting Unemployment — the Innovation for Jobs Summit at Google

Opening question: “How can innovation disrupt unemployment and create meaningful work for everyone?” Is this Socialism 2.0 or, alternatively, an employment marketplace?

Information asymmetries and inefficiencies define labor markets today. This leads to “costly signals of quality” — like four-year college degrees and trusted brands being overvalued. “There has been a 25% drop in job mobility in the U.S. since 2000, and half of wage increases come from job mobility.” and “The barriers keep growing. Over 50% of EA job listings require a 4-year college degree.” — U.S. National Economic Council

This got me thinking about how to address those costly signals of quality:
1) lifelong credentialing expanding from online education, to freelancing, to careers
2) internships as a trial for “experience goods” as people tend to be
3) training contracts that avoid the legal barriers for indentured servitude, etc.

It’s a bit of a conundrum for “jobs” per se, whereas finding symbolic immortality in “meaningful work” seems like an easier challenge if one just ignores the liklihood of extreme power laws in income distribution.

I hope to be able to share video from the event. Meanwhile, here is a short video that covers some of my precursor thoughts on a tech-accelerated rich-poor gap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgzaYOZUIfU&feature=youtu.be&t=13s

… and prior flickr photoblog posts on the subject: https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=rich-poor&sort=relevance&user_id=44124348109@N01 #i4j2015

Thanks to Damien Miller for these various photo perspectives.