Amazon, gig companies see spike in workers on SNAP and Medicaid, study shows — from washingtonpost.com by Lauren Kaori Gurley and Rachel Lerman
Amazon workers on federal aid nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025, while ride-hailing and food delivery drivers shot up on lists compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
On 07/22/2026,
in Amazon, business, career development, communities of practice, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, economics, entrepreneurship, funding / grants, legislatures / government / legal, society, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
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On 07/22/2026,
in business, career development, collaboration, credentialing, education, education reform, future, ideas, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, more voice more choice more control, pathways, policy, real-world assignments, skills, society, student-related, teachers, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Steward Stories: How Heart of Oregon Corps Turns Service into Careers — from gettingsmart.com by Karen Pittman and Merita Irby
Our “Steward Stories” series captures lessons learned from interviews with leaders of mature, purpose-built ecosystem intermediaries. An ecosystem steward is a boundary-spanning leader who goes beyond traditional out-of-school time (OST) system building to weave together the diverse people, places, and possibilities that shape a young person’s daily life. Rather than managing a single isolated network, stewards collaborate across K-12 schools, youth development programs, and workforce systems to build vibrant, equitable learning ecosystems. They drive systemic change from practice to policy by creating purpose-built intermediaries, developing scalable cross-system training tools, and championing “Future Features” of learning. These core priorities include promoting learner agency, institutionalizing “unwalled” schools that connect community resources to formal education, broadening the definition of educators to include informal mentors, and normalizing pathways for students to receive school credit or credentials for out-of-school learning.
The starting points, paths, and targets set by these stewards are as varied as the conditions and opportunities present within their communities. But they share similarities in vision and approach. Learn More Here.
Learning ecosystems may be found anywhere, but it takes careful stewardship to help them thrive.
— Shift, Remake Learning
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On 07/16/2026,
in business, career development, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, education, engagement / engaging students, engineering, entrepreneurship, experimentation, innovation, K-12 related, learning, skills, society, student-related, teachers, United States, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Agilities — from agilities.org by the DeBruce Foundation; via Paul Fain
Help students build confidence and prepare for bright careers!
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Also from Paul Fain, see:
Unlocking Opportunity: Progress on Moving More Students Toward Good Jobs — from highered.aspeninstitute.org
Released in partnership with the Community College Research Center (CCRC), Unlocking Opportunity: Progress on Moving More Students Toward Good Jobs highlights early outcomes from the first 10 colleges in the Unlocking Opportunity network. The report demonstrates that community colleges can rapidly increase enrollment in high-value workforce and transfer pathways while reducing enrollment in or improving programs with weaker labor market and bachelor’s degree outcomes.
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On 07/15/2026,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, corporate / business world, economics, student-related, United States, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
The economy is shutting young adults out of career-entry jobs, analysis finds — from hrdive.com by Laurel Kalser
Artificial intelligence matters, but in a “narrow, early and age-specific way,” researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said.
Dive Brief:
- The decline in overall job openings, exacerbated by a rising demand for artificial intelligence-related skills, is causing employment opportunities for young adults aged 18 to 24 to deteriorate, according to researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
- Between April 2023 — when the U.S. labor market was at its strongest — and December 2025, the employment rate among 18- to 24-year-olds fell by more than 2 percentage points, researchers William Rodgers, III, and Alice Kassens reported in a June 30 post. The decrease appeared primarily as higher unemployment, rather than as labor force exits, “indicating that younger workers were still searching for jobs but with fewer opportunities available,” the authors noted.
- By contrast, there was no comparable slide for workers aged 25-64, whose employment outcomes remained largely stable, the researchers said.
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On 07/14/2026,
in business, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, curriculum, faculty/staff, health, higher education, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, skills, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Why recruiters can’t find workers and new grads can’t find jobs (it’s not AI) — from washingtonpost.com by Jon Marcus
Experts say a major labor shortage looms because of population shifts and a mismatch between new graduates’ skills and employers’ needs.
Recent college graduates complain they can’t find entry-level jobs because artificial intelligence is taking over.
Yet, tech recruiter Matt Walsh and other experts say the growth of AI and the struggle to find entry-level work mask a bigger problem: The United States is facing what’s projected to become the largest labor shortage in its history.
In sectors such as semiconductor production, the problem isn’t AI or too few jobs, said Walsh, CEO of the Phoenix-based search firm Blue Signal.
“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “There just aren’t enough people.”
Economists warn that the worsening labor problem, due in part to a skills shortage and population shifts, will be vast and reach beyond tech.
Among the trends that have been leading to this moment: a mismatch between the careers college graduates are pursuing and the jobs employers are struggling to fill. Far fewer students are majoring in health care fields than are needed to meet demand, for instance.
“We have pumped so many young people into business and finance” when what’s really in demand are graduates in other fields, Hetrick said. “It’s like a factory producing these workers like widgets, even though society is saying, ‘We really don’t need them.’ And the factory just keeps pumping them out.”
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On 07/14/2026,
in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, curriculum, emerging technologies, faculty/staff, higher education, leadership, Learning Experience Design, parents/guardians, pathways, policy, project-based learning, skills, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, trends, United States, universities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
“Teachers ban it. Employers demand it.”
Also relevant/see:
The Shifting Career Ladder — from nafez.substack.com by Nafez Dakkak
AI is changing how work works and quietly removing the pathways through which young people learn to become experts.
AI is reshaping how people build skills, enter professions, and move along the career ladder and through the labour market.
In this conversation, I sit down with Matt Sigelmen founder of LightCast and now the President of Burning Glass Institute. Matt has dedicated his career to understanding the labor market and helping society improve the connections within in it.
Matt and I explore why people and opportunities are often only “a few skills apart,” why entry-level work may be losing its traditional role as the first rung of expertise, and why schools, universities, and employers now need to rethink the pathways that turn potential into mastery.
Educators need to be deeply aligned with what these changes are, and they need to shift the AI discourse from “how” questions to “what” questions. What do we need to teach? What do we need to keep in the curriculum?
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On 07/07/2026,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, innovation, instructional design, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, liberal arts, more voice more choice more control, skills, society, student-related, teaching & learning, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
Higher Education Can’t Wait for the Future to Arrive (Lev Gonick, Arizona State University) — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury
“The biggest risk we face as a sector is assuming we can wait out AI.”
We have an opportunity right now to reorient the university around student experience—not as an aspiration, but as a necessity. I’m calling this shift TechEd, which I explore in detail in my LinkedIn series The TechEd Revolution.
AI poses a fundamental shift in how technology might empower students to own their discovery and educational journey, and to drastically reduce the friction that makes college so unappealing to so many.
To that end, we need to urgently redesign systems and opportunities around skills and competencies. That work should be far more advanced than it currently is. And one of the hardest challenges is rethinking how we operate as a workforce in academia.
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On 07/06/2026,
in business side of he, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, faculty/staff, higher education, parents/guardians, society, student-related, trends, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
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On 06/29/2026,
in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, economics, global / globalization, participation, pathways, policy, reinvent, society, student-related, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Entry-Level Work: A Framework for Safeguarding and Reinventing Early Career Pathways — from the World Economic Forum (weforum.org) and PwC
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how organizations hire, develop and advance talent, and this is most visible at entry-level. Globally, more than one in three young workers are employed in occupations with medium to high exposure to AI-driven task change. How these roles evolve will have significant implications for organizational performance, workforce participation and economic mobility.
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On 06/29/2026,
in Alternatives, business, career development, change, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, higher education, ideas, innovation, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, pathways, project-based learning, real-world assignments, skills, society, strategy, student-related, training / L&D, UK, universities, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Will learning curated by employers replace degrees? — from universityworldnews.com by Louise Nicol
If universities do not future-proof their offer through deeper and more credible partnerships with employers and industry, what exactly prevents employers from educating and training people themselves?
This is why the future of higher education depends on far deeper and more operational partnerships with industry. Not symbolic advisory boards or occasional guest lectures but genuine co-design of curricula, shared ownership of applied projects and clear accountability for graduate capability.
Universities that integrate live industry problems, cross-faculty collaboration and work-based learning into the core of their programmes make themselves harder to replace. Those that acknowledge the existence of external learning platforms and deliberately build them into a broader educational journey strengthen rather than weaken their position.
The real risk for universities is not replacement but marginalisation. Employers will not abandon universities out of hostility or ideology. They will do so pragmatically if universities fail to add distinctive value beyond what employers can now deliver themselves.
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On 06/29/2026,
in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, culture, emerging technologies, ethics, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, morals/values, organizational change, pace of change, parents/guardians, personalized/customized learning, policy, reinvent, relationships, skills, society, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
The Current State of Play: AI in Higher Education and the Road Ahead — from er.educause.edu by Tanya Gamby, David Kil, Rachel Koblic, Paul LeBlanc, Mihnea Moldoveanu and George Siemens
The conventional explanation for this strategic vacuum points to the speed of technological change; it is moving too fast for institutions built for deliberation. That is true. . . and incomplete. The deeper issue is cultural. In fairness to higher education, many industries are struggling to keep up with the pace of AI advances. Higher education, however, moves even more slowly and is not built for the kind of transformational speed now underway. Getting institutional stakeholders to engage, rethink the work, and move faster may be the central challenge facing presidents and chancellors today, and that’s saying a lot in such volatile times.
From DSC:
I highlighted this paragraph because it hits upon the key item involved here — culture. “The deeper issue is cultural.” I think that’s a very true statement.
Part of the culture and setup of many institutions includes giving faculty members full rein of their classes and their departments. Faculty members have a great deal of leeway and power in how they do things. So trying to get X faculty members to get on board — including the Department Chairs — is not an easy task.
Another part of culture involves being willing — or not — to change in the first place. Some institutions are like Google and are used to making changes and being more innovative. But those institutions are not the norm, at least in my experience. And this doesn’t even address another topic the article mentioned — the pace of these changes. As the authors point out, most institutions of traditional higher education are not equipped to deal with the current pace of change (nor are most of our other types of institutions and our corporations as well).
I’m going to end this posting with another brief excerpt from the article:
Institutions rooted in human relationships, committed to truth-seeking, and oriented toward the full development of persons play a central role. AI cannot manufacture the experience of mattering to another human being. It cannot model intellectual courage or ethical discernment. It cannot build the kind of community in which students discover who they are and what they believe.
These are not small things. They are, in fact, the things most worth doing. At their best, colleges and universities are not only preparing better workers but shaping individuals and strengthening society.
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On 06/19/2026,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, Canada, career development, communities of practice, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, experimentation, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, pathways, reinvent, skills, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, tools, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Following are several companies that are using AI to connect people to work. That’s a significant piece of my Learning from the Living [AI-Based Class] Room vision.
These companies were listed on an article entitled,
“Can AI be an effective career coach?”
— from achievepartners.com and Ryan Craig
FutureFit AI
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Empowering every job seeker with personalized AI coaching. Helping organizations scale career services and improve outcomes.
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OpportuNext from Signal49 Research is a free-to-use career tool created in partnership with the Future Skills Centre. Using big data, it matches a person’s skills with viable career paths — often including some you have not considered.
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On 06/19/2026,
in apprenticeships, business, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, internships, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, student-related, training / L&D, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
If AI Eats the Entry-Level Job, Where Do Young People Learn to Work? (Ryan Craig, Achieve Partners) — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury; via Ryan Craig
“The public should not be subsidizing colleges whose students lack relevant, paid, in-field work experience.”
That is the trap at the center of this conversation: everyone wants to hire someone with three years of experience, and almost no one wants to provide those three years.
And Ryan’s policy prescription is unusually concrete: pay employers to hire and train apprentices, following the countries that have scaled apprenticeship far faster than the U.S.; require colleges receiving federal student aid to provide relevant, paid, in-field work experience; and build a market of intermediaries that can make the whole thing operational.
Ryan’s view is that higher education remains critically important. But college without meaningful work experience may become a much worse bet, especially for students who cannot afford to guess wrong.
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On 06/18/2026,
in Africa, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, economics, emerging technologies, Europe, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, new business models, productivity / tips and tricks, skills, society, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, vendors, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Important insights from this PwC global jobs report — from linkedin.com by Ross Dawson & PwC
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On 06/14/2026,
in 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, student-related, teaching & learning, trends, United States, universities, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Why Students Aren’t All In on AI—And What They Want From Colleges — from insidehighered.com by Colleen Flaherty
New Student Voice data reveal students are embracing AI as a learning tool while worrying about dependence, career disruption and inconsistent institutional responses.
Read on for six takeaways from the survey and additional insights—including how institutions can start to close the gap between students’ optimism about AI as a learning tool and their faith in their colleges’ ability to help them navigate change.
Takeaway 1: More students are using AI than ever for coursework, while a significant share—20 percent—remain resisters.
Takeaway 2: “Worried about dependence” is the most common student stance on AI.
Takeaway 3: A majority of all students expect AI to somewhat (39 percent) or very (16 percent) negatively impact their career prospects.
Takeaway 4: Just one in 10 students says that their institution is handling AI’s rise very well, in a thoughtful and proactive way.
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