Credit: jurvetson via Openverse licensed under CC BY 2.0To help them navigate an uncertain employment future, New Jersey should help workers save and pay for training and protect their health and safety as well as their finances. What’s more, the state should improve the unemployment website that frustrated tens of thousands of unemployed workers during the COVID-19 shutdowns, allowing people to more easily get their benefits and find work, a task force recommends in a report being released Thursday.
The Future of Work Task Force, created by Gov. Phil Murphy 3 1/2 years ago, started as a way to examine how technology and automation would impact workers. But it refocused after hearing workers were more concerned about a lack of full-time jobs with benefits and access to training after the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how vulnerable some occupations were to unforeseen forces.
“Everybody is concerned about the impact that technology will have on industry or their sector, but interestingly not as concerned as you might think about the impact directly on their job,” said Beth Noveck, the state’s chief innovation officer and chair of the task force. “So it is not that people are immediately worried that ‘the robots will eat my job and my job will not be there tomorrow,’ and I think rightly so. People are much more concerned about issues like their own health and safety, how will they afford other benefits to which they are entitled, whether they have time and opportunity and ways of getting upskilled and prepared for the jobs of tomorrow.”
Threat of automation
Automation could be a problem, the report says, with the most at risk “middle-skill, ‘routine’ jobs that are easiest to automate,” and these tend to be people doing low-wage work. The way automation will bring skills in and out of demand will lead to “challenges reskilling and upskilling workers for new types of jobs.” It cites a Brookings Institution report that found workers of color will be disproportionately impacted, with 47% of tasks done by Hispanic workers and 44% by Black workers subject to automation, compared with 40% of tasks by white workers.
Governor sets up task force, says New Jersey must prepare for ‘profound impact’ of technological changes
“Ongoing labor market shifts have the potential to be accelerated by technology, including negative trends such as rising inequality, stagnant wages and benefits, and the proliferation of precarious and uncertain employment relationships,” the report states.
Still, it notes new technologies are also expected to bring new job opportunities to the state, including as many as 8,000 jobs related to the expansion of offshore wind energy. It also anticipates job growth in the nonretail food and beverage industry and the legalization of recreational use marijuana.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 wound up not only delaying the task force’s work, as it did most everything, but it also shifted some of the group’s focus to issues surrounding business closures and unemployment and the need to be ready to face unknown business disruptions in the future. Fully two-thirds of New Jersey businesses have sought financial assistance as a result of COVID-19, the report states. The number of small businesses open in the state decreased by almost 41% from January 2020 to April 2021. During the same time, small-business revenue dropped by 39%, with revenue in the leisure and hospitality sector declining by close to two-thirds. In addition to facing outsized health impacts, people of color also disproportionately lost their jobs, the report states.
The huge shift the pandemic brought on top of an already changing economy relying on a growing number of gig workers, independent contractors without health care and other benefits informed a number of the task force’s recommendations.
Among those are creating better enforcement mechanisms to ensure employers follow workers’ rights and benefits laws and empowering the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development to better enforce workplace safety laws. The task force also targeted the moribund unemployment system, which left thousands of New Jerseyans waiting months to get a check after mass pandemic layoffs. At its worst in the spring of 2020, more than 700,000 New Jerseyans were unemployed.
It’s unclear how much it might cost to repair the unemployment benefit system and its decades-old technology. A bill that advanced in 2020 sought to allocate $50 million in federal COVID-19 relief for a fix. It never made it to Murphy’s desk.
Garden State teams with Natural State
New Jersey and Arkansas are participating in a federal pilot project to modernize and improve the unemployment system, but that work is still in the early stages. Noveck said the task is being tackled in stages and that rather than a major overhaul, people can expect to see “lots of little, small wins” as the work progresses.
Another important recommendation would have the state set up a portable benefits system to allow nontraditional or gig workers to have retirement accounts and worker’s compensation insurance that would follow them as they change jobs over their lifetimes. Legislation (S-328) that would create such a program has been pending since 2017 and is currently sponsored by Sen. Troy Singleton (D-Burlington). The retirement account might be part of the new Secure Choice Savings Program open next month to employees of businesses with at least 25 workers that don’t already offer a retirement plan.
The task force also recommends creating lifelong-learning accounts for New Jerseyans, with the state providing funds to those with incomes of $50,000 or less. Lifelong-learning accounts are similar to a state-sponsored IRA or 401(k). Workers who establish and pay into an account could use the funds for education and training, as well as transportation, child care and other expenses to enable them to take the training. The funds would be available to them throughout their careers, and the accounts would offer tax advantages. Washington and Maine are among the states that already have such accounts. This is another program lawmakers have been pushing for several years. Assemblywoman Carol Murphy (D-Burlington) is currently sponsoring A-2534, an implementation bill. Noveck said $10 million was included in the current budget and officials are working to get the program up and running.
Task force considers benefit reforms, training and more to help workers
Other recommendations seek to improve the ability of individuals to find and compare available education programs, funnel financial incentives to companies to offer training and develop outcome standards that businesses would have to meet to receive state or federal funding.
Not surprisingly from an administration that has been very supportive of unions, a task force recommendation suggested the state take further steps “to protect union organizing and collective bargaining.”
Noveck said the Murphy administration is already working on many of the recommendations, though some others might need legislative approval. In a message included in the report, Murphy wrote he was grateful that the task force pivoted to address and respond to the challenges raised by COVID-19 without losing sight of its original purpose of addressing the influence of new technology on work. He added he is committed to advancing the task force’s recommendations.
