Washington and the Future of Work

What is the future of work? It’s a pressing question, as the state recovers from a world-changing pandemic. Automation is advancing rapidly. Remote work has become the new normal. Frontline workers, many of whom risked their health to keep their jobs, face choices about what to do now that the economy has begun to recover. For others, whose jobs disappeared during economic shutdowns, starting something new isn’t a choice, but a necessity.

What we know…so far

Washington was the first state in the nation to begin to answer the question of “what does the future of work look like?” The Legislature funded a Future of Work project and Task Force in 2018. The Task Force crafted 17 recommendations across five key topic areas and delivered a robust report. Several of these recommendations were adopted by the state legislature and are now in law or budget. Since then, funding for the project, and task force, have ended. But the highlighted issues have only grown more prominent, with COVID-19 putting many of those changes in overdrive.

What’s next?

A U.S. Department of Labor Dislocated Worker Grant is focused on helping local workforce development boards advance “future of work” strategies for dislocated workers (see sidebar).

Our job now is to help workers, job seekers, businesses across industry and sector, along with workforce system practitioners, adapt to the future of work with new thinking and new resources. These tools must be relevant to an increasingly digital, data driven, and more inclusive economy. We intend to keep these web pages fresh with the latest information to help drive economic recovery—from an organized library of research and reports, to top tips from across the nation and world.

Focus on equity key

Prior to the pandemic, future of work discussions were often framed in terms of advancing technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, big data, facial recognition, machine learning, and robots. However, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic and social upheavals, these discussions are now more focused on equity, inclusion and economic inequality issues.

This does not mean that technology isn’t advancing. It is, in fact, accelerating. But policy efforts are taking into account many more factors related to income inequality and economic disparity experienced by Blacks, Hispanics, women, residents of rural communities, and other disadvantaged populations. These inequities were already present pre-pandemic but made them visible in a big way. Tackling these inequities and providing our workforce and employers with the tools to succeed is our challenge.