{"id":250460,"date":"2025-09-24T02:33:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T02:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250460\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T02:33:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T02:33:15","slug":"jerome-powell-says-gen-z-without-tech-skills-are-being-crushed-in-this-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250460\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerome Powell says Gen Z without tech skills are being crushed in this economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell issued a warning to young workers on Tuesday: if you don\u2019t have technology skills, you\u2019ll be left behind <\/a>in today\u2019s labor market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking in Rhode Island this week at an event hosted by the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, Powell described what he called an unusual \u201clow-hire, low-fire\u201d economy. Companies aren\u2019t expanding payrolls<\/a>, but they also aren\u2019t cutting staff in large numbers. Instead, many are pausing new hires while they wait to see how tariffs, immigration policy, and other shifts play out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all see the data\u2014it\u2019s just gotten tough for people entering the labor force to be hired,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

However, he emphasized that the market isn\u2019t difficult for everyone. If you come out of school with technological skills, you\u2019ll be fine \u2013 \u201cgreat,\u201d even.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have those skills, though, you\u2019re increasingly left with less attractive employment options,\u201d Powell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An education gap<\/strong><\/p>\n

Powell tied the problem to a plateau in U.S. educational attainment. For much of the 20th century, more Americans graduated from high school and college, giving them the ability to adapt to new technology. But that progress slowed in the 1970s, even as the digital economy accelerated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m struck by how the U.S. educational attainment kind of plateaued,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

He cited the work of Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, whose book The Race Between Education and Technology argues that inequality widens when schooling fails to keep pace with innovation. He stated that technological change, when paired with education, has raised productivity and incomes, since the Industrial Revolution.<\/p>\n

The Fed chair pointed out that for decades, U.S. workers were able to ride each new technological wave because the country was expanding access to education.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States was the first country to have gender blind secondary education,\u201d Powell said. \u201cThe U.S. had fast technological innovation for a century, and also declining inequality, because people were coming out and their educational capability\u2026 gave them the ability to benefit from evolving technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

That dynamic has broken down, he suggested, leaving today\u2019s graduates more vulnerable.<\/p>\n

The AI economy<\/p>\n

The surge in artificial intelligence investment<\/a> has only sharpened the divide. \u201cThe economy [is] growing, but not fast\u2026 except in the area of the AI build out, which is just going really strong pretty much [in] many parts of the country,\u201d Powell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That has created strong demand for AI-related skills<\/a> while leaving other areas of hiring stalled, a reality which Powell stressed that the Fed has little ability to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur tools work on demand\u2014basically lower interest rates, higher interest rates,\u201d he said. When there are \u201cstructural changes\u201d to the economy, there isn\u2019t much more the Fed can do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t fix the education system,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s for legislators and the private sector. But it matters enormously for the future of our economy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Fortune Global Forum<\/strong> returns Oct. 26\u201327, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell issued a warning to young workers on Tuesday: if you don\u2019t have technology…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[738,64,16720,79,11410,1597,3991,14232,19549,142,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-250460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-colleges-and-universities","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-fed-interest-rates","13":"tag-federal-reserve","14":"tag-gen-z","15":"tag-harvard-university","16":"tag-interest-rate","17":"tag-jerome-powell","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115256937903987237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}