Attention Economy


Friday, March 11, 2016

Human Capital, Technology, Jobs and Inequality

WSJ - Americans Rank Last in Problem-Solving with Technology
“A new report finds U.S. workers rank dead last among 18 industrial countries when it comes to “problem solving in technology-rich environments,” or using digital technology to evaluate information and perform practical tasks. The consequences of that emerging competitive disadvantage is energizing the volatile undercurrent of this year’s presidential race, some observers say….
One stark revelation is that about four-fifths of unemployed Americans cannot figure out a rudimentary problem in which they have to spot an error when data is transferred from a two-column spreadsheet to a bar graph. And Americans are far less adept at dealing with numbers than the average of their global peers.
“This is the only country in the world where it’s OK to say ‘I’m not good at math,’ ” said Mr. Provasnik. “That’s just not acceptable in a place like Japan.””

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Human Capital and Income Inequality

WSJ - How a Less-Skilled American Workforce May Be Holding Back Growth
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/02/29/how-a-less-skilled-american-workforce-may-be-holding-back-growth/