The New AI Jobs, Smaller Firms Shaping Remote Work And How United Is Luring Tech Workers

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It’s been just nine months since OpenAI launched ChatGPT into the world. Sort of crazy to think about, huh? Every once in a while, it’s good to take stock of how much has already changed—and how quickly.

That’s what my colleague Emmy Lucas did this week when she reported on numbers from LinkedIn, Indeed and ZipRecruiter that found that jobs that manage, lead or train artificial intelligence efforts are growing exponentially. Yes, there are many concerns about the jobs AI will replace, and it will be years before we know if the ones it creates outweigh the lost ones. But for now, the growth is eye-popping: According to LinkedIn’s new Future of Work report, the share of global English-language job postings on the platform mentioning GPT or ChatGPT has increased 21 times since November 2022. For more from Emmy’s story, check out her story here.

Hope it’s a great weekend.

Jena McGregor, Senior Editor, Leadership Strategy & Careers | @jenamcgregor

HUMAN CAPITAL

Forbes continues to tally new layoffs, with reports of job cuts at Phillips 66, SecureWorks and Shutterfly in recent days. The continued cuts reflect a more cautious job market—if still a strong one—that contributor David Morel says could lead to better hires.

The current labor market has been dubbed a “richcession,” writes contributor Jack Kelly, as the slowdown impacts hiring for white-collar job seekers in particular. Listings for technology roles are down 55% from a year ago, Kelly reports, while banking vacancies fell more than 40% and insurance listings dropped 18%, research from Indeed shows.

HYBRID WORK

New data from hybrid work management company Scoop finds that smaller companies are leading the march away from mandated office presence, contributor Gleb Tsipursky reports. Some 76% of companies with under 500 employees now offer work location flexibility or have gone fully remote. Why that matters: These companies are likely to grow over time, potentially shaping the makeup of how many employees can work from home.

EQUITY + INCLUSION

A survey of roughly 1,000 women found that more than 90% of them reported receiving romantic or inappropriate messages on LinkedIn at least once, a reminder that even on professional networks, it’s important to be cautious about connections, contributor Kim Elsesser writes. In an emailed response, LinkedIn said such advances violate its rules, with its policies saying such content isn’t allowed on the platform.

WHAT’S NEXT: UNITED AIRLINES’ KATE GEBO

As we near the end of a summer of travel disruptions, Forbes spoke with United Airlines’ executive vice president of human resources and labor relations, Kate Gebo, about its massive hiring plans, why tech workers are more interested in working for an airline these days and how moms on Facebook are helping drive young workers to job fairs. Excerpts from our conversation have been lightly edited for space and clarity.

At a time of so many job cuts and caution around hiring, you’re hiring 15,000 people this year, and 50,000 by 2026. What’s your biggest hiring challenge when it comes to labor shortages?

Our biggest challenge is our maintenance technicians. That’s been an area where we haven’t historically had a lot of challenges hiring, but there’s a limited number of aircraft mechanics out there. … We’re doing things that we hadn’t historically done—one of those is an apprenticeship program. You could be a facility technician—maybe you do air conditioners, for instance, or you do general facility maintenance. You could be in the apprenticeship program with United, and become an aircraft maintenance technician.

There’s been a lot of layoffs happening at tech companies. Is that an opportunity for you?

When the tech companies were all hiring a lot, it had an impact on us. It was a very tight market last year. Now they’re all laying off. … We’re targeting folks that might be on the West Coast and encouraging them to think about Chicago and think about United and a hybrid environment. We’ve been pretty successful with that. We’ve got a lot of people from Salesforce or Amazon or Meta or Google that are joining United.

I also think Covid caused a lot of people to think about instability in the workforce. We’ve been around 100 years. That might feel different today than it did before Covid. … The other thing is that travel is very, very strong right now. We’re a company and an industry that is really benefiting from that right now.

There has been lots of disruption in air travel this summer, and a lot of headlines about where the blame is being cast. Clearly shortages are having some kind of impact. What are you doing to try to prevent them?

There’s a difference between shortages of staffing and maybe proficiency of the team. One of the challenges the industry has right now is the hiring of air traffic controllers—and then making sure that they’re proficient. Not every first-year air traffic controller is as good as a five-year [controller].

We’ve done this with a program we call Accelerate at the airports [for United’s workers]. How do we make sure they have all the skills they need to do their job? … It’s very different to hire 500 people a year versus 15,000 people. We’ve had to adapt the scale of training that we’re undertaking, going from individual and one-on-one training to more learn-and-practice [on the airport floor] to develop those skills.

United just negotiated what’s been described as a historic contract with your pilots, with increases of up to 40% over four years. After the UPS contract, there was a massive surge of interest in jobs there. Are you seeing the same effect?

The thing with pilots is that it takes a while. But generally in the job market, we’re seeing a 56% increase from January to July of this year versus January to July last year in applications to United. We’ve had over 50,000 people apply for flight attendant positions, and we have 3900 positions open. … We have gone retro and done in-person job fairs, and we’ve had thousands of people show up in Houston, in Chicago, in San Francisco to apply for our jobs. We post on Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram and then people like you and me—moms—send it to their kids because their kids are not on Facebook, right?

As more companies deal with labor organizing, any advice for other CHROs?

Over 85% of the employees at United are represented by unions. What I would say for companies that are new to working with unions is that you have the same constituents. Our employees are their members. And the more you can align with the good of the employee in mind, the better off you’re both going to be.

FACTS + COMMENT

A recession has been warned about for months. Yet after months of action by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and a stubbornly strong unemployment rate, will it still happen?

• 54%: The percentage of economists who believe the U.S. will enter a recession over the next year, down from 64% last fall, according to a quarterly survey by the Wall Street Journal.
• 11%: The percentage of Russell 3000 companies that used the word “recession” in their second-quarter earnings calls, according to an analysis by Goldman Sachs. That’s down significantly from last year’s peak of 27%.
• ‘Forecasting recessions is a mug’s game’: JPMorgan Chase’s chief U.S. economist, Michael Feroli, in a note to clients earlier this month.