The 137-year-old pharmaceutical and medical-device company has hired 6,000 data scientists and digital specialists in recent years, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on their work, such as using machines to scour massive health-record datasets. Last year the company opened a state-of-the-art research site near San Francisco that houses advanced data science.

Some early efforts focus on diagnostics, like an algorithm that analyzes heart tests to spot a deadly type of high blood pressure much sooner than humans can, and voice-recognition technology to analyze speech for early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. There’s a virtual-reality goggle set to help train surgeons on procedures like knee replacements.

The long game, though, is a goal that has seen a lot of hype but less concrete proof that it will become a reality: using AI for drug discovery.

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Can 6,000 data scientists and a massive database speed up discovery of new drugs? J&J is trying it. https://t.co/9KKphmEx1U https://t.co/9KKphmEx1U

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 30, 2023

After years of inflation, US consumers are shouldering a burden unlike anything seen in decades — even as the pace of price increases has slowed.

It now requires $119.27 to buy the same goods and services a family could afford with $100 before the pandemic. Since early 2020, prices have risen about as much as they had in the full 10 years preceding the health emergency.

It’s hard to find an area of a household budget that’s been spared: Groceries are up 25% since January 2020. Same with electricity. Used-car prices have climbed 35%, auto insurance 33% and rents roughly 20%.

Those figures help explain why Americans continue to register strong dissatisfaction with the economy: Consumers’ daily routines have largely returned to their pre-pandemic normal, but the cost of living has not.

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From the Bloomberg article, “Just How Bad Is the US Cost-of-Living Squeeze? We Did the Math.”#economy #inflation #inequality #econtwitter @economics @markets pic.twitter.com/CXO2P0Wbez

— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) November 27, 2023

Gen Z and millennial adults are having a hard time achieving the same milestones their parents did when they first ventured out into the workforce.

For instance, 55% of young adult respondents find it is “much harder” to purchase a home, 44% said it is harder to find a job and 55% said it is harder to get promoted, according to a Youth & Money in the USA poll by CNBC and Generation Lab.

The survey polled 1,039 people between ages 18 and 34 across the U.S. from Oct. 25 to Oct. 30.

“This is purely a snapshot of what young people perceive their lives to be like compared to their parents,” said Cyrus Beschloss, founder of Generation Lab, an organization that built the largest respondent database of young people in America.

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Gen Z, millennials have a much harder time ‘adulting’ than their parents did, CNBC/Generation Lab survey finds https://t.co/h1T3NEXdZq

— CNBC (@CNBC) November 13, 2023

More people are making hardship withdrawals from their 401(k) accounts, raiding retirement funds to cover emergency medical expenses or to avoid losing a home.

Hardship withdrawals from Fidelity Investments 401(k) accounts have tripled in five years, according to a report from the investment firm. The share of plan participants withdrawing money rose from 2.1% in 2018 to 6.9% in 2023.

“It’s a big problem, and it’s a growing problem,” said Kirsten Hunter Peterson, vice president of thought leadership at Fidelity.

Vanguard reports that hardship withdrawals have doubled in a four-year span, from a monthly rate of 2.1 transactions per 1,000 participants in 2018 to 4.3 in 2022.

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Hardship withdrawals from 401(k) accounts have tripled in five years, according to Fidelity Investments. The share of plan participants withdrawing funds rose from 2.1% in 2018 to 6.9% in 2023. https://t.co/ktQZtj4Fus

— Stephen Miller, CEBS (@smiller_cebs) October 26, 2023

Fifty-eight percent of employees say their organization has asked workers to take on additional responsibilities, according to Gallup’s first-quarter survey of the U.S. workforce.

This comes in the middle of a tight labor market. Job openings remain high, and layoffs have fallen below 2019 levels, according to the BLS.

One consequence of a labor shortage is a higher demand for individual worker productivity. Employers look to their current workforce to fill the gaps of essential job openings that remain unfilled.

However, the risk is increased employee stress and burnout. When employees say that their organization has asked them to take on additional responsibilities, they are also:

–2.5x as likely to feel burned out at work very often or always
–55% more likely to watch for or actively seek a new job
–39% less likely to be engaged at work
–half as likely to think their employer cares about their wellbeing

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In a Tight Labor Market, Employees Bear the Burden https://t.co/SSNQzgaz5e

— Bradley Kreit (@bkreit) October 18, 2023

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A study just published in JAMA finds that people who stay seated for long hours at work and home are at much higher risk of developing dementia than people who sit less. https://t.co/nfGYd5RgBV

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 27, 2023

For the United Auto Workers, it makes perfect sense to demand more pay and better work-life balance from Detroit’s three automakers. After all, workers throughout this historically tight labor market are getting exactly that. But what makes sense to striking factory workers makes no sense for manufacturing as a whole.

Pay is ultimately tied to productivity: the quantity and quality of products a company’s workforce churns out. And here, American manufacturing companies and workers are in trouble.

The issue isn’t with labor-intensive products such as clothing and furniture, which largely moved offshore long ago. Rather, it’s in the most advanced products: electric cars and batteries, power-generation equipment, commercial aircraft and semiconductors. President Biden might be celebrating a manufacturing renaissance based on new factories, but the share prices of former manufacturing icons Ford Motor, Intel, Boeing and General Electric suggest skepticism is warranted about the durability of this renaissance: All are at a fraction of all-time share-price highs.

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Pay is ultimately tied to productivity, and here, American manufacturing companies and workers are in trouble, says chief economics commentator @greg_ip https://t.co/CNFmEeraou

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 20, 2023

On this three day weekend, when we rest from our usual labors, loving Father, we pray for all who shoulder the tasks of human laboring the marketplace, in factories and offices, in the professions, and in family living.

We thank you, Lord, for the gift and opportunity of work; may our efforts always be pure of heart, for the good of others and the glory of your name.

We lift up to you all who long for just employment and those who work to defend the rights and needs of workers everywhere.

May those of us who are now retired always remember that we still make a valuable contribution to our Church and our world by our prayers and deeds of charity.

May our working and our resting all give praise to you until the day we share together in eternal rest with all our departed in your Kingdom as you live and reign Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

–-The Archdiocese of Detroit

Happy #LaborDay! We’re honoring the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity and well-being. https://t.co/Ub7b8FOSMh pic.twitter.com/NLWdJmpBTg

— U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) September 4, 2023

The development is owed partly to a rebound in immigration as the United States has eased pandemic-related restrictions, cleared processing backlogs and enacted more permissive policies. Labor supply has also received a boost as some demographic groups — including women in their prime working years — have returned to the job market in bigger numbers than anticipated, pushing their employment rates to record highs.

That influx has made the Fed’s job a little less painful. Hiring has been able to chug along at a solid clip without further overheating the labor market because job seekers are becoming available to replace those who are getting snapped up. Unemployment has held steady around 3.5 percent, and some data even suggests that staffing is becoming less strained. Wage growth has begun to slow, for instance, and workers are no longer pulling such long hours.

“Monetary policy is part of the story to get demand moving towards supply, but any help we can get from supply increasing, that’s good news,” John C. Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in an interview with The Financial Times this month.

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The expanding supply of workers has allowed the Fed to accept the faster-than-expected hiring without slamming the brakes on the economy even more aggressively.

A Flood of New Workers Has Made the Fed’s Job Less Painful. Can It Persist? https://t.co/mvAz3MCsYF

— Sean Graf (@seangraf) July 24, 2023

An industrial arms race is under way. America welcomes it, saying the world needs green technologies and a diversified supply of chips. It is true that an ocean of public money is bound to accelerate the green transition and reshape supply chains in ways that should increase the security of democracies. Alas, the accompanying economic benefits being promised are an illusion. As we report this week, governments that subsidise and protect manufacturing are more likely to harm their economies than help them.

In ideal conditions, promoting manufacturing can add to innovation and growth. Towards the end of the 20th century South Korea and Taiwan caught up with the West thanks to the careful promotion of manufacturing exports. In industries like planemaking the enormous costs of entry and uncertain future demand can justify support for new firms, as when Europe backed Airbus in the 1970s. Likewise, targeted help can boost national security.

But today’s schemes are likely either to fail or to prove needlessly costly. Countries subsidising chips and batteries are not pursuing catch-up growth but fighting over cutting-edge technology. The market for electric vehicles and batteries is unlikely to become an Airbus-Boeing style duopoly. In the 1980s protectionists argued that Japan would dominate the strategically vital semiconductor industry, owing to its subsidised mastery of memory-chip making. It did not turn out that way.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Governments are not wrong to pursue good jobs, the green transition or national security. But the potential for the manufacturing obsession to backfire is enormous https://t.co/BXCCBI1Ls0

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 16, 2023

The Hollywood actors’ union approved a strike on Thursday for the first time in 43 years, bringing the $134 billion American movie and television business to a halt over anger about pay and fears of a tech-dominated future.

The leaders of SAG-AFTRA, the union representing 160,000 television and movie actors, announced the strike after negotiations with studios over a new contract collapsed, with streaming services and artificial intelligence at the center of the standoff. On Friday, the actors will join screenwriters, who walked off the job in May, on picket lines in New York, Los Angeles and the dozens of other American cities where scripted shows and movies are made.

Actors and screenwriters had not been on strike at the same time since 1960, when Marilyn Monroe was still starring in films and Ronald Reagan was the head of the actors’ union. Dual strikes pit more than 170,000 workers against old-line studios like Disney, Universal, Sony and Paramount, as well tech juggernauts like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.

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Breaking News: TV and movie actors are going on strike, joining Hollywood screenwriters and effectively bringing the entertainment industry to a standstill. https://t.co/QxBXrDR09t

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 13, 2023

Thousands of people are working at the run of new warehouses and manufacturing sites spreading throughout the Charleston region in recent years and all of them need to eat.

Trouble is, many of those industrial buildings are located in congested or out-of-the-way areas that aren’t close to quick and easy dining options, leaving workers with limited choices when it comes to grabbing a meal during a short lunch or dinner break.

Now some businesses are recognizing that a full-bellied employee can be more productive than one who’s going hungry, and they’re adding food to the list of perks that workers can take advantage of without having to leave the factory. While the meal offerings aren’t necessarily priced lower than what a worker could find elsewhere, the convenience can add up to dollars in terms of time and travel expenses that are saved.

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Some businesses are recognizing that a full-bellied employee can be more productive than one who's going hungry and they're adding food to the list of perks that workers can take advantage of without having to leave the factory. https://t.co/n3AOlEI0xm

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) July 3, 2023

Groff argued that it was too difficult for employees to bring religious claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination on various fronts, including religion.

The justices in a unanimous ruling written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito clarified a 1977 Supreme Court ruling called Trans World Airlines v. Hardison. The court said then that employers are not required to make accommodations if they would impose even a minimal or, using the Latin term preferred by the court, “de minimis,” burden.

That ruling built on the language of Title VII, which says an accommodation can be rejected only when there is an “undue hardship” on the employer.

The court on Thursday ruled that the hardship needs to be more than a minimal one.

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The Supreme Court rules in favor of a Christian mail carrier who claimed the U.S. Postal Service did not do enough to accommodate his request not to work on Sundays in a case that will make it easier for employees to seek religious accommodations. https://t.co/mnNJqlWH88

— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 29, 2023

Now, experts say the phenomenon is finished. Ten straight interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, slowing wage growth, stubborn inflation and mass layoffs in some industries may be causing Americans to stay put.

“The great resignation, by really any measure, is over,” said Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics at Stanford University who studies labor economics. The combination of a tight labor market and structural change from the pandemic catalyzed job reshuffling over the past three years, he said. “But that’s moved into the window of history now.”

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics bolsters Bloom’s observation: The number of people quitting their jobs fell by 49,000 in April compared to March, according to the most recent numbers available from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

In fact, the so-called “quits” rate has steadily declined since last spring and is now virtually identical (just 0.1% above) the pre-pandemic rate in February 2020. Essentially, quits are back to the 2019 pre-Covid average.

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Had a good run.@CNN @knowledge_vital https://t.co/V4U5WUYMvS pic.twitter.com/VskpOmuHPy

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) June 13, 2023

Experts say that even advanced AI doesn’t match the writing skills of a human: It lacks personal voice and style, and it often churns out wrong, nonsensical or biased answers. But for many companies, the cost-cutting is worth a drop in quality.

“We’re really in a crisis point,” said Sarah T. Roberts, an associate professor at University of California in Los Angeles specializing in digital labor. “[AI] is coming for the jobs that were supposed to be automation-proof.”

AI and algorithms have been a part of the working world for decades. For years, consumer-product companies, grocery stores and warehouse logistics firms have used predictive algorithms and robots with AI-fueled vision systems to help make business decisions, automate some rote tasks and manage inventory. Industrial plants and factories have been dominated by robots for much of the 20th century, and countless office tasks have been replaced by software.

But the recent wave of generative artificial intelligence – which uses complex algorithms trained on billions of words and images from the open internet to produce text, images and audio – has the potential for a new stage of disruption. The technology’s ability to churn out human-sounding prose puts highly paid knowledge workers in the crosshairs for replacement, experts said.

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Technology used to automate dirty and repetitive jobs. Now, artificial intelligence chatbots are replacing workers with high-paid jobs as well. https://t.co/oqqx1XJUem

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 2, 2023

In the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution the world’s population, like its wealth, has exploded. Before the end of this century, however, the number of people on the planet could shrink for the first time since the Black Death. The root cause is not a surge in deaths, but a slump in births. Across much of the world the fertility rate, the average number of births per woman, is collapsing. Although the trend may be familiar, its extent and its consequences are not. Even as artificial intelligence (ai) leads to surging optimism in some quarters, the baby bust hangs over the future of the world economy.

In 2000 the world’s fertility rate was 2.7 births per woman, comfortably above the “replacement rate” of 2.1, at which a population is stable. Today it is 2.3 and falling. The largest 15 countries by gdp all have a fertility rate below the replacement rate. That includes America and much of the rich world, but also China and India, neither of which is rich but which together account for more than a third of the global population.

The result is that in much of the world the patter of tiny feet is being drowned out by the clatter of walking sticks. The prime examples of ageing countries are no longer just Japan and Italy but also include Brazil, Mexico and Thailand. By 2030 more than half the inhabitants of East and South-East Asia will be over 40. As the old die and are not fully replaced, populations are likely to shrink. Outside Africa, the world’s population is forecast to peak in the 2050s and end the century smaller than it is today. Even in Africa, the fertility rate is falling fast.

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"The world's population could shrink for the first time since the Black Death due to declining fertility rates"

Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences https://t.co/HksCFeSrpN pic.twitter.com/JMCcDEXZKx

— Paul Kedrosky (@pkedrosky) June 1, 2023

ZENIT spoke with Father Tarcisio Giuseppe Stramare of the Congregation of Oblates of Saint Joseph, director of the Josephite Movement, about Tuesday’s feast of St. Joseph the Worker….

ZENIT: What does “Gospel of work” mean?

Father Stramare: “Gospel” is the Good News that refers to Jesus, the Savior of humanity. Well, despite the fact that in general we see Jesus as someone who teaches and does miracles, he was so identified with work that in his time he was regarded as “the son of the carpenter,” namely, an artisan himself. Among many possible activities, the Wisdom of God chose for Jesus manual work, entrusted the education of his Son not to the school of the learned but to a humble artisan, namely, St. Joseph.

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Joseph the Carpenter
Georges de La Tour, c. 1645
Saint Joseph Feast pic.twitter.com/d5ijdfBFZv

— Marysia (@marysia_cc) March 20, 2023

Workers who have ever dreaded writing a briefing for your boss, building a digital presentation of your ideas or sifting through long email threads to get caught up on the latest projects may soon have some assistance — in the form of artificial intelligence.

At least that’s what Google aims to do for workers who use its suite of enterprise software tools called Google Workspace, which includes Google Docs, Google Sheets and Gmail. The tech giant plans to integrate its office products with generative AI that can do things like generate an entire document or create images based on a prompt. Workers will be able to access these capabilities by clicking a new wand icon that’ll appear in their apps.

Google plans to begin rolling out some features, starting with writing functions in Google Docs and Gmail, to select enterprise customers within the next couple of weeks, it said. It’s unclear when other features may become available.

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Google Workspace, including Google Docs, Sheets and Gmail, will soon include generative AI tools that aim to aid with work. https://t.co/knON3lnVNg

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 14, 2023

“I think we might exceed a one-to-one ratio of humanoid robots to humans,” Elon Musk declared on March 1st. Coming from the self-styled technoking of Tesla, it was not so much a prediction as a promise. Mr Musk’s car company is developing one such artificially intelligent automaton, codenamed Optimus, for use at home and in the factory. His remarks, made during Tesla’s investor day, were accompanied by a video of Optimus walking around apparently unassisted.

Given that Mr Musk did not elaborate how—or when—you get from a promotional clip to an army of more than 8bn robots, this might all smack of science-fiction. But he has waded into a very real debate about the future of work. For certain forms of ai-enabled automation are fast becoming science fact.

Since November Chatgpt, an ai conversationalist, has dazzled users with its passable impression of a human interlocutor. Other “generative” ais have been conjuring up similarly human-like texts, images and sounds by analysing reams of data on the internet. Last month the boss of ibm, a computing giant, forecast that ai will do away with much white-collar clerical work. On March 6th Microsoft announced the launch of a suite of ai “co-pilots” for workers in jobs ranging from sales and marketing to supply-chain management. Excitable observers murmur about a looming job apocalypse.

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Absolute levels of adoption of industrial robots remain low. Even South Korean firms, by far the world’s keenest robot-adopters, employ ten manufacturing workers for every industrial robot https://t.co/mwHsvq9LoZ

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 9, 2023

The Bible begins with the words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. One chapter later, we’re told that when God created the world he was “at work”. That the very first thing we learn about God is that he is a worker is very significant.

The nations around Israel believed that humans were created because the gods didn’t want to work – work was beneath them. But the Scriptures show us a God who works. Work is not an evil necessity but something associated with God’s character and so, when he creates humans and tells them to go and work in his garden, this is not a jail sentence but a privilege.

Genesis 2 also tells us that God rested. He worked and he rested, and in so doing established a pattern for us. Humans aren’t made for work alone but for work and rest. And as Hebrews tells us, rest is ultimately about our eternal relationship with God. We are made for the heavenly rest where we enjoy the presence of the living God and life full of joy and relationship in a renewed heavens and earth.

Against this backdrop we read that God created us. And there are two really important truths here. First, we are created in the image of God. And second, as those created in God’s image we are created specifically for work.

When God made men and women – to fill the earth and to rule over it – he gave us the privilege of working as his agents in his creation. It’s easy for us to miss the significance of this. Work is very, very good. Work is not the thing that you do to get to the good bits. There is something good about work, even when it’s very “worky”! Even when it’s tiring and difficult.

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Joseph the Carpenter by Georges de La Tour, circa 1642.#YearofStJoseph pic.twitter.com/bzbZRYUnuk

— Brant Law (@Mr_BLaw) July 29, 2021