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A young anonymous woman working on a laptop.
Employing AI fraud: Fake job applicants and fake employers
For one, employment scams surged in 2023, up 118% from the year prior, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center — largely due to the rise of AI. Scammers often pose as recruiters, advertising fake jobs to entice victims to cough up personal information. In 2022, consumers told the US Federal Trade Commission that they lost $367 million to these kinds of scams. And that was largely before the generative AI boom.
On the other side, real businesses are also wary of fake job applicants who can take advantage of remote work policies to interview and even get hired in order to steal money, collect an unearned salary, or gain access to company information. In 2022, the FBI reported an uptick in complaints regarding the use of deepfakes and stolen personal information to apply for remote work positions. “In these interviews, the actions and lip movement of the person seen interviewed on-camera do not completely coordinate with the audio of the person speaking,” the FBI warned. “At times, actions such as coughing, sneezing, or other auditory actions are not aligned with what is presented visually.”
Two years later, the technology is only more sophisticated, with more convincing text generation, text-to-speech tools, deepfake audio, and personal avatars. AI tools, even if intended to make life and business easier for people and companies, can easily be weaponized by bad actors.
Graphic Truth: Apprenticeships are on the rise
Whether it’s the price of college, the promise of the gig economy, or simply the desire to get paid while training, apprenticeships are having a moment. In the US, this surge has coincided with an 8% drop in undergraduate college enrollment; in Canada, it comes amid high youth unemployment.
In short, young people want options for brighter futures. As a result, apprenticeships are increasingly becoming an alternative to expensive four-year college degrees, or as a way to forge new careers mid-life. Apprentices get all the benefits of other employees, including wages, while getting valuable on-the-job training.
After dipping during the pandemic, the number of apprenticeship registrations jumped 12% in 2022 to an all-time high in Canada. In the US, they rose 22% between 2020 and 2021 and saw an 82.1% jump between 2008 and 2021.
But this isn’t just a COVID-fueled trend. SAIT, one of Canada's largest post-secondary institutions for apprenticeships, has seen a 20% increase in enrollment over the last two years. So apprenticeships are likely to increase even more in the coming years.
A "Help Wanted" sign hangs in a restaurant window.
Jobs are up, but Biden and Trudeau still risk losing theirs
January was an encouraging month for job growth in the US and Canada. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 353,000 new jobs stateside with unemployment holding steady at 3.7%. Meanwhile, Statistics Canada says jobs were up by 37,000 during the same period and unemployment was down to 5.7% – a modest drop of 0.1%. Both countries exceeded expectations.
You might think better-than-expected economic news would herald brighter fortunes for President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but you would almost certainly be wrong. Both men’s polling numbers are nowhere near where they’d like them to be.
Biden’s favorables are flat with roughly 40% of Americans approving of his job performance compared to 55% who disapprove. Meanwhile, 86% of the country thinks he’s too old to run again. North of the border, Trudeau continues to trail Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre by double digits, and his party is stuck in the mud.
There’s a chance numbers will improve for the incumbents, but the December jobs report in the US also exceeded expectations and didn’t boost Biden’s ratings. The Canadian numbers were softer in December, so Liberals have some hope the latest good news will give Trudeau a boost this time.
But so far, and perhaps counterintuitively, their political fortunes do not seem directly tied to economic performance.
US job growth slows for a fifth straight month, but labor market remains strong.
What We’re Watching: US jobs report & new China, Afghan energy extraction deal
Jobs report: US labor market remains strong
The Fed’s interest rate hikes, designed to battle inflation, have slowed US job growth for a fifth straight month. The American economy added 223,000 jobs in December, well below last year's peak of 714,000 in February but still above expectations of around 200,000. The December numbers put the monthly average for 2022 at 375,000. A slowdown has been in effect since last August, but the labor market is still hot: 4.5 million jobs were created last year, the second highest since 1940. Such resilience likely means more interest rate hikes are to be expected. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate hit a historic low of 3.5%. The leisure and hospitality industry saw the biggest job gains, followed by healthcare and construction, while retail, manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing saw the least. President Joe Biden said the historic job gains are giving American families more “breathing room” amid the “cost-of-living squeeze.”
China, Afghan energy extraction deal reached
The Taliban have signed their first energy extraction deal. A Chinese company has sealed a three-year, $540 million agreement with Afghanistan to drill and extract oil from the Amu Darya basin in the north. The deal spans three Afghan provinces and will create 3,000 jobs. No country officially recognizes the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government, and it has been globally criticized for its treatment of women. Yet, the Chinese have maintained and strengthened their diplomatic presence in the war-torn country, which sits atop an estimated $3 trillion of untapped oil and minerals. Beijing’s presence has been punished by the Islamic State, which attacked and injured several Chinese personnel in Kabul last month. But with tensions rising between Beijing’s erstwhile South Asian ally, Pakistan, and the Taliban, whose offshoots have stepped up their attacks on the nuclear-armed Islamic Republic, we’ll be watching to see whether the new oil deal might convince the Taliban to halt their support of terrorism.
COVID upended the job market & focused employers on skills
COVID had few silver linings. But perhaps one of them is that it upended the labor market in ways that, for once, favored workers over employers.
The switch to virtual meant that recruiters were forced to urgently find people with the right digital skills instead of waiting for those that had gone to the "right" schools.
"The talent market became a little dry," Jonathan Rochelle, VP of Product Management, Learning Content & Instructor Experience at Linkedin, says during a Global Stage livestream discussion.
LinkedIn data, he adds, shows that the trend continues to grow.
Watch the full Global Stage discussion, live from the 77th UN General Assembly.
Hard Numbers: Piling on Beijing, 7th time’s the charm for Boris, massacre in Myanmar, US unemployment claims drop
5: Five countries — Australia, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Lithuania — have so far joined the US in refusing to send government officials to the Beijing Winter Olympics in February over China’s human rights abuses. China’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday said these states would “pay the price” for the diplomatic boycott.
52: US unemployment claims plunged last week to a 52-year low. Several factors likely influenced the drop, including the ongoing pandemic recovery as well as job market changes related to the holiday season.
11: Myanmar's military reportedly rounded up 11 civilians — including five children — on Tuesday, tied them up, and then burned them alive. The massacre in the country’s northwest reportedly came after a military vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
7: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson became a dad for the seventh time Thursday, when his wife Carrie gave birth to a baby girl. It’s a welcome reprieve for Johnson, who has been having a very rough time politically, including over a recent scandal in which his staff allegedly breached lockdown restrictions to party.The Graphic Truth: Can we work only 4 days a week?
This fall Spain plans to launch what will be the world's first national pilot program for a four-day workweek. The idea has gained popularity in recent years to encourage productivity, boost workers' mental health, and fight climate change (less commuting means less pollution). The pandemic, particularly with its stresses on mental well-being, has added urgency to the proposal. That's why other countries — especially those with strong labor protections and short workdays — are paying close attention to the experiment, under which the Spanish government will subsidize part of a company's cost to transition its employees to a four-day workweek. Here's a look at how long workers are generally on the job in other OECD countries (without accounting for paid leave in any of them).
'Hell Joseon': Coronavirus dashes young Korean's dream of working in US
SEOUL - Living in New York and about to complete her post-graduate studies in political science earlier this year, Ms Lee Hyun-a was ready to find a job in the big apple and start the new chapter of her life there.