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Remarkably, in this highly-partisan era of American history, there is a newly-formed, non-partisan association with the stated purpose of “partnering with governors, employers, and training partners to help the American workforce make a successful transition to an AI economy.”

This is the first large-scale independent entity formed to address the challenge that is top-of-mind of many of us in higher education and associated fields who are concerned with the anticipated impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the workforce. It is good news!

This announcement comes in the wake of dire predictions and hiring trends. Rather modest four and five year predictions were reported earlier this year by Davron, who provide executive search and outplacement services for the engineering, architecture, construction, and manufacturing industries. They reported:

• Approximately 6% of U.S. jobs (around 10 million roles) could be automated by 2030.
• Up to 30% of U.S. jobs may have substantial portions of their tasks automated.
• As many as 60% of jobs could see meaningful workflow changes due to AI integration.

Meanwhile, layoffs have taken place as companies take advantage of AI in a variety of areas, though most notably in displacing workers in the IT, coding and customer service areas. Yet, there is a less-transparent movement in the workforce. This may be an underlying cause of wide discrepancy in impact predictions. CBS News reported in Money Watch at the end of May that weaker hiring “can draw less attention than layoffs because companies rarely announce such decisions. They simply fail to replace workers who resign, retire or otherwise leave their employment. Research from Goldman Sachs shows that in the past year, AI reduced monthly payroll growth by roughly 16,000 jobs, raising the unemployment rate by 0.1 percentage point.” The CBS report goes on to cite Daniel Keum, associate professor of management at Columbia Business School that “the approach is not so much through increased layoffs, rather, the strategy tends to be reduced hiring, especially reduced hiring of junior workers.”

Ignoring those positions that are consolidated from full time to part time, let’s use the prediction of 10 million jobs are lost from the U.S. economy in the next four years as suggested by the DAVRON report cited above. The fallout in the human loss of traditional workers’ benefits, incomes, and support services would be massive. It would not just be the workers themselves, but the U.S. The Department of Labor Statistics reports that more than 70% of the households include adult partners, and 40% of all families include children under 18 with half of these households having two or more children.

When one includes spouses and children, ten million lost jobs would most directly impact an additional 12 million more family members. To put this in perspective, that’s the sum of the total populations of the half dozen largest cities in the country: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia! Just imagine the impact. We would see huge increases in the need for food, housing, health care; social services needed by the workers, dependent children and spouses; re-training needed for those seeking to qualify for new jobs in the expanding AI growth economy. Who would pay for the lost benefits and needed services? How could we meet these needs? We only have about four years to solve this looming problem!

As we approach 2030, we need to take some action to address the inevitable impact of increased unemployment as well as underemployment, and the shift of jobs from some industries to others. Therefore, it is comforting that public-minded leaders have been moved to pro-actively address the workforce challenges that AI presents for our near-term future and beyond.

Former Biden administration Commerce Secretary and prior Democratic Governor of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo and Indiana’s former Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, are leading the RAISE US initiative, which has been created for “building the workforce infrastructure America needs so workers can train, transition, and thrive in an AI economy.”. Raimondo is CEO and co-chairs the association with Holcomb. Together they lead a distinguished administration and advisory board pulling members from government, education, business and industry. Secretary Raimondo oversaw huge federal programs, notably in the tech area including $39 billion in incentives for chip manufacturing, $40 billion in broadband grants, and significant investments in climate resilience and minority business support. Prior to the Commerce Secretary post, she served as the 75th Governor of Rhode Island, where she focused on economic development, infrastructure, and education. Under her leadership, Rhode Island became the first state to offer tuition-free community college for all high school graduates. Co-chair, Eric Holcomb, served as Indiana Governor from 2017 to 2025. His eight years of leadership focused on economic growth, workforce development, and infrastructure, earning Indiana a AAA credit rating from all three major credit agencies.

The ties to education are strong throughout the leadership of the association, including the Executive Director of CollegeBound Foundation and Chair of the Maryland Higher Education Commission Cassie Motz and Kaya Henderson, Executive Vice President and Executive Director of the Center for Rising Generations at the Aspen Institute and former Chancellor of DC Public Schools from 2010–2016. College and university presidents, deans and professors are prominently represented on the 25 member Board of Advisors.

The Next Web reports that OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon and Microsoft were among the first to provide grants to RAISE US. Other early benefactors include Bank of America, IBM, Mastercard, AMD, Eli Lilly and the Rockefeller Foundation. RAISE US has secured half a billion dollars to seed their efforts that focus on workforce training. The nonpartisan nonprofit hopes to secure a total of a billion dollars to fund their initiative to help workers through the anticipated AI disruption.

This is an impressive and promising start to addressing the shakeout in the workforce that is expected with the advent of AI. I am elated to see the deep representation of higher education in the leadership and administration of RAISE US. Yet, even if the shakeout of jobs is a mere fraction of predictions, we will need more engagement both at the individual institution and industry-wide levels in higher education if we are to have a chance at smoothing the transition in this country. The time for planning is very short. It is time for action. Is your institution prepared to handle the volume of workers needing retraining if a major employer in your region shifts from human to AI workers? Are you leading discussions on how to best serve learners preparing for the AI future of the workplace? What can you do to ensure your institution, your community, and you are prepared for 2030?

 

This column was originally published in Inside Higher Ed.