Microbrews are providing us with macro clues about the state of the U.S. economy — and how confident Americans actually feel about reopening amid the pandemic.
The big picture: The national trend shows that more watering holes are opening up, with 85% of locations open and pouring beer last weekend. And if the bars are open, it’s a good sign that those communities have opened up, too.
But the glass is half full: In open establishments, only 49% taps are open, compared to 96% last June.
Not all job boards are created equal, but some are capable of getting you where you want to go.
Consider this: Freelancers are expected to become the U.S. workforce majority in the near future. That means we can expect to see more and more freelancing job boards appear. That’s not to say we need them. Take a look at the Google search results for “freelance jobs.” You’ll find hundreds of websites that can connect you with prospective clients.
The problem, however, is that not all job boards are created equal. Some are a bit suspicious, causing both freelancers and businesses to question their legitimacy. Others are meant only for seasoned veterans. There are also boards capable of finding work quickly for freelancers, but they won’t get paid very much. Consider it the “price of entry” to the freelance realm.
These obstacles make finding freelance work more complicated than it has to be. That’s why I’ve put together a list of 18 freelance sites to help entrepreneurs find their next gig. Each of these sites is reputable and can be used by freelancers of all experience levels, empowering people to make the most of their skills in a shaky economy.
Starting salaries for newly minted college graduates are lower almost across the board as a result of the economic fallout from Covid-19.
However, some entry-level positions in tech still pay near six figures, according to new data from Glassdoor.
Some entry-level job offers and internship opportunities are being rescinded, another survey found.
Those armed with a newly minted college diploma are entering the worst U.S. job market in modern history, with unemployment spiking to levels not seen since the Great Depression.
Scott Galloway, lecturer in Marketing at New York University, speaking at the DLD (Digital-Life-Design) conference in Munich, Germany, 18 January 2016.
An NYU professor of business surmises that because of the effects of the coronavirus, anywhere from one-quarter to almost one-half of universities in the nation may go out of business in the next five to ten years. NYU professor Scott Galloway also admitted that foreign students paying full tuition are the “cash cow” for universities and “might decide not to show up.” He commented, “What department stores were to retail, tier-two higher tuition universities are about to become to education and that is they are soon going to become the walking dead.”
Speaking with Hari Sreenivasanon on PBS’ “Amanpour and Co.,” Galloway spoke of the impact of the coronavirus on colleges and universities, forcing them to hold their classes over the internet, and how that may catalyze flight from the universities and the universities’ subsequent downfall. Galloway stated, “Students I think across America along with their families listening in on these Zoom classes are all beginning to wonder what kind of value, or lack thereof, they’re getting for their tuition dollars … There’s generally a recognition or disappointment across America, and I would argue that it’s not that they’re disappointed in the Zoom classes, it’s more the recognition that Zoom has uncovered how disappointing college education is. I think there’s a lot of households saying, ‘This is what we’re paying for?’”
Twitter, Facebook among companies that will allow employees to work remotely moving forward
Coronavirus causes ‘big movement’ out of New York City: Moving company president
Roadway Moving President Ross Sapir says more people are leaving New York City for nearby states or southern states, like Florida and Texas.
Coronavirus-related work-from-home policies at the country’s biggest technology companies appear to have caused an exodus from Silicon Valley, which has sent rent prices in San Francisco plummeting.
Rents for a one-bedroom apartment in the major metro area were down 9.2 percent in June when compared with the same period last year, according to data from rental site Zumper. That is the largest decline since at least 2015 and brings the price point ($3,360) down to where it was three years ago.
In the U.S. overall, one-bedroom rents fell by just 0.2 percent. No other major metro city’s data came close to the decrease in San Francisco.
With the president pushing for children to return to the classroom and a number of states intent on pursuing phased reopenings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released guidance for reopening schools. But a new Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of USA Today has found that if schools reopen in the fall, they may find attendance down as many parents will likely continue at-home learning.
While more than half of Americans polled, just more than 2,000, said they supported a range of suggested proposals for reopening schools for in-classroom learning in the fall, a majority of the parents surveyed appeared hesitant to return their children to school before a vaccine had been found. A total of 59% of parents surveyed who had at least one child in a K-12 grade said they would “likely” pursue at-home education options such as homeschooling or remote learning instead of sending their children back into the classroom. Another 30% said they were “very likely” to continue to pursue at-home learning.
The CEO of Skylum notes that we will now understand how things can work when people are purely focused on productivity and communication, and that is going to change everything.
To say the coronavirus has had an impact on the way the world “works” would be an understatement.
In a matter of weeks, we’ve gone from a society that sees remote work as a luxury, or even a “freelancer lifestyle,” to realizing the vast majority of jobs today can be done from home. Companies that hadn’t moved the majority of their assets to the cloud are now doing so at a rapid rate. Video calls have gone from being a suboptimal alternative to a core function of the way we communicate. The list goes on and on—and the impact is here to stay.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve noticed several shifts in our company, Skylum, as more than 100 of us around the world have adjusted to the new rules of society.
Many have never worked from home before, which comes with a unique learning curve. Many have never had the opportunity to connect and collaborate with other employees who work out of offices on different continents—which is now easier since everyone is “remote.” Many have also never viewed their job descriptions through the lens of being quarantined, where tasks left unfinished become more obvious to the rest of the group (in an office setting it’s easier to appear “busy”).
Can we foster the same work culture and communication standards through a video chat?
In the midst of the ongoing pandemic, there is an awakening among CEOs that employees are capable of doing work and being productive from home.
This week, Twitter announced that employees can work from home indefinitely, becoming the first big tech company to make such an open-ended switch in policy. Twitter, the service, was buzzing, with many investors and pundits calling it the end of the office space as we know it.
For the last five years, there’s been an increasing chorus of engineers, designers and professionals claiming that remote work is the future.
I’ve been working from home on and off for the last two decades. I find I can be more productive for some types of work and have more time to exercise, cook and be with the family when I’m working from home. On the flip side, activities that need high-bandwidth collaboration and communication are harder. Certain aspects of team and company building are also much harder to achieve.
The rise of artificial intelligence in the workplace to enable and sustain the digital workforce is an apparent trend for 2020.
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks or whatever other fancy terms industry is coming out with for what is defined as the sophisticated computer technology that is becoming widely utilized to understand and improve business and customer experiences. I assume you have heard of it before, but the way it is defined today is an area of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans.
Here are ten AI trends to be on the lookout for this year:
Motor vehicle crashes cost the US $242 billion a year, according to the most recent estimate.
A study finds that California lockdown restrictions reduced crashes that kill or seriously injure people to 200 a day, down from 400 in the same period last year.
FOR ALL THE misery Covid-19 has wrought, the shelter-in-place orders imposed in the name of public health have yielded a few benefits, at least for driving. American motorists are putting half as many miles on their odometers as they usually do this time of year, according to Arity, a data analytics company. One result is reduced air pollution. Another is fewer crashes, saving lives and money. In California alone, those savings amount to some $40 million each day, well over $1 billion since the state went into lockdown mode in March.
That figure—presented in a new study by researchers at the UC Davis—is surprising only if you don’t consider the economic ripples of a crash. Counting medical expenses and productivity losses stemming from injuries and deaths, car crashes cost the US economy more than $75 billion in 2017. Throw in property damage, emergency responders, insurance costs, congestion, and the inevitable court cases, and it’s far more. In 2010, the most recent year for which the grand total is available, crashes cost the US $242 billion. California accounted for $20 billion of that sum.
Work From Home Has Nearly Doubled Our Load on Infrastructure: BT Consumer CEO
People are overworked, stressed, and eager to get back to the office.
An executive at JPMorgan Chase & Co. gets unapologetic messages from colleagues on nights and weekends, including a notably demanding one on Easter Sunday. A web designer whose bedroom doubles as an office has to set an alarm to remind himself to eat during his non-stop workday. At Intel Corp., a vice president with four kids logs 13-hour days while attempting to juggle her parenting duties and her job.
Six weeks into a nationwide work-from-home experiment with no end in sight, whatever boundaries remained between work and life have almost entirely disappeared.
To say COVID-19 has turned the business world upside down is an understatement. From pivoting to remote work to facing abrupt career setbacks, we are navigating turbulent waters.
But as the famous Franklin D. Roosevelt quote goes, a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. There are crucial career skills that can help you not only survive the current storm, but also learn to thrive in it and emerge stronger and better.
We’ve asked Roy Cohen, career coach and best-selling author of “The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide,” for his insights on the career skills that are super important right now.
Master the competencies below and you’ll be equipped with evergreen expertise that will help you face even the most volatile or brutally competitive scenarios with grace.
