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Recent Editions
Human Times
North America
The U.S. government has given Anthropic the green light to put its Claude Mythos 5 artificial intelligence model back into the hands of 100 or so “trusted partners”, including many Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government departments. The Trump administration had been concerned that such powerful AI systems could be misused by military intelligence users in China, Russia or other countries. Reuters notes that the administration's vetting of which companies can gain access to Mythos has been widely criticized. "No one knows how these companies are picked and why everyone else is excluded," observed John Coleman, legislative counsel for the Philadelphia-based nonpartisan free speech organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. "This is putting too much power in the hands of the government. There's little transparency and it raises questions about the rule of law."
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Human Times
UK
The Wall Street Journal reports that some employers are cutting back on junior hiring because widespread remote work is making young talent a less attractive value proposition. Researchers from the London School of Economics, who recently observed that the amount of hiring devoted to entry-level roles across some countries has fallen more than 14% since 2019, said the return-on-investment after the hiring of an entry-level worker is dependent on the rate at which that young employee learns. Since remote work slows that process, employers prefer to invest instead in older workers, the researchers argue. “The implication is stark . . . A persistent contraction of this kind hollows out the pipeline of future experienced workers, causing declines in aggregate productivity as well as imposing cohort-specific scarring,” they wrote.
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Human Times
Europe
Volkswagen's works council and the IG Metall union say they haven’t been informed of plans to cut as many as 100,000 positions in Germany to boost competitiveness. Top labour representative Daniela Cavallo has been part of the German car maker’s attempts to cut costs, but talks didn’t detail specific job reduction targets. Manager Magazin reported last week that Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume aims to cut up to 100,000 jobs and discontinue production at four of the group's German plants, as he seeks to reduce investment by around 15% to just over €130bn ($148bn) over the next five years. "The entire group, including its brands and subsidiaries, must undergo far-reaching change," a Volkswagen spokesperson said at the time. Bloomberg notes the difficulty that Blume can expect when pushing ahead with his plans: labour leaders are powerful and VW law gives the state a veto over key decisions while making it harder to close major German plants.
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Human Times
Middle East
The Wall Street Journal reports that some employers are cutting back on junior hiring because widespread remote work is making young talent a less attractive value proposition. Researchers from the London School of Economics, who recently observed that the amount of hiring devoted to entry-level roles across some countries has fallen more than 14% since 2019, said the return-on-investment after the hiring of an entry-level worker is dependent on the rate at which that young employee learns. Since remote work slows that process, employers prefer to invest instead in older workers, the researchers argue. “The implication is stark . . . A persistent contraction of this kind hollows out the pipeline of future experienced workers, causing declines in aggregate productivity as well as imposing cohort-specific scarring,” they wrote.
Full Issue