California Executive Order Targets AI Workforce Disruption

Last Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order intended to help prepare workers and small businesses to deal with the potential disruptions associated with AI.  The order directs state agencies “to build a framework for responding to potential workforce disruption and ensuring workers are not left behind as AI adoption accelerates.” This excerpt from the press release accompanying the order says that it directs state agencies to:

• Empower workers and help them share in the gains made from AI adoptions:
  • Evaluate and support opportunities to expand and enhance worker ownership models to support broad-based capital growth and build wealth from productivity gains among workers, including employee-owned company structures.
  • Support small businesses through educational and incentive opportunities on best practices and applications for using emerging technology to support competition and broad-based economic growth, while supporting workforce training and retention.
  • Identify ways the collective bargaining process has delivered positive outcomes for workers.
  • Add more on-the-job training and AI preparation in higher education.
• Track and understand the impact of AI on the workforce, filling the gaps of knowledge and providing clear and concrete data with:
  • A new report on recommendations, best practices, and early economic warning signals of potential labor disruptions, drafted in consultation with labor, industry, and academic experts.
  • A new dashboard showing the impact of AI across sectors.
  • Recommendations within 180 days on revisions and updates to the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, to ensure WARN can be used to provide early warning data and is responsive to emerging industry trends.
  • New business feedback on the role of technology in workforce decisions incorporated into the state’s monthly jobs report.
• Respond to possible employment and workforce disruption by:
  • Reviewing policies that provide workers with a safety net, including severance and other forms of compensation such as stock or other forms of equity.
  • Increasing awareness and enrollment of employment insurance programs, including employment stability payments.
  • Creating an AI playbook to modernize job training programs, including expanding strategies for connecting dislocated workers with training and technical assistance and updating target industries to reflect emerging economic trends.
  • Creating a single online platform to enable Californians to more easily navigate government services and, ultimately, help Californians identify all social services for which they may be eligible.
  • Leveraging California Volunteers for those experiencing long-term unemployment and to provide essential training for entry-level workers.
• Develop stronger public policy and support programs for using AI to advance the public good:
  • Work with academic experts and the private sector to develop recommendations for altering incentive structures and increasing the likelihood of AI development and deployments that advance the public good and address critical problems facing society.