What’s Next at Work? Much Change, and Likely Some Pain for Employees
At the Journal’s Future of Everything Festival, many predicted work could shift, jobs will vanish and some employees might be displaced; ‘there’s going to be disruption’
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Workers, brace yourselves.
The rise of artificial intelligence and other new technology may mean plenty of roles and professions shift in the coming years, displacing some employees and requiring far different skills and training, according to executives in a range of industries.
In sessions at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival this week, some leaders gave blunt assessments of the coming transition and said current employees may not be able to adapt.
“This is the hard part: I’m not sure we can upskill everyone. I don’t think they’re going to make it. It’ll take too long,” said Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor, in an onstage interview on Wednesday. “There’s going to be a big shift in know-how in the company.”
At Ford, the automaker will still need traditional roles such as powertrain engineers and supply-chain specialists to help it manufacture vehicles, but it will also require employees with more digital expertise, Mr. Farley said. The company has been recruiting more technical employees, and its office in Silicon Valley is now full of such workers, he said.
“There’s a new skill set we’re going to need, and I don’t think I can teach everyone,” he said. “It’ll take too much time. So there’s going to be disruption.”
For years, workplace specialists predicted that technology would upend work, often warning that blue-collar jobs could be most affected by automation. More recently, though, many leaders see AI as having a far greater potential impact on corporate employees than hourly workers.
At the hotel giant Hilton, CEO Chris Nassetta said he could see AI being used in marketing, revenue management, customer insights and finance functions in the company.
Many executives said they were still unclear about AI’s role inside companies, and some expressed optimism about how the technology could free workers from drudgery.
“AI is going to take away a lot of mundane tasks from people and hopefully free people up to spend more time creatively, spend more time with the people they want to spend time with,” said Marissa Mayer, the former Yahoo CEO. She is now the CEO and co-founder of the startup Sunshine, whose product helps people to better manage their digital contacts.
Others said AI potentially could help with tasks such as summarising messages from colleagues, freeing employees from reading hundreds of emails and other communication.
“When there is so much happening in organisations, AI can also help you focus,” said Lidiane Jones, CEO of the messaging platform Slack. “So out of my 5,000 pings, what are the things that I should really prioritise?”
Labor leaders said they, too, were eyeing AI’s influence on the workplace. Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, said she hopes any sort of efficiency benefits achieved through AI would be shared with workers.
“Workers really need to be at the table to make sure that these are going to be technologies that are going to work for us, and give us more tools to do our job,” she said. “So we do want to implement these things in a way where, No. 1, we are sharing the benefits of that productivity, and that’s going into everyone’s pockets who’s a part of that company.”
Beyond technology, executives said they were seeing other changes in the job market. It is now easier to hire cooks, housekeepers and other hotel employees than it was earlier in the pandemic, Hilton’s Mr. Nassetta said, though he added that the hospitality industry is still dealing with some labor shortages. He also called for changes to immigration policies to enable more workers to come to the U.S.
“There just aren’t enough people in our country in terms of service-level jobs to do the things that we need to do,” he said. “If we don’t think about immigration really sensibly, we’re eventually going to stunt the growth of our economy.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said his administration was considering flexible hours and other benefits to get more people to take jobs with the city. Mayor Adams also said he was concerned by layoffs among financial companies in New York.
“It’s crucial that we stabilise Wall Street,” he said. “Wall Street is so important to the economic stability of the city.”
Throughout the event, a number of speakers also sprinkled their remarks with guidance for professionals looking to navigate the challenges of careers. Fashion designer Michael Kors said he made the biggest mistakes in his career when he became too focused on others.
“You cannot constantly be looking at everyone else. You can’t look over your shoulder. You have to do what’s right for you,” Mr. Kors said. “Listen to your gut. Move slowly. Stay focused.”
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Mirzaian is a senior director within CBRE’s Development NSW business, operating across the company’s Western Sydney and North Sydney offices
Singapore’s Formula 1 weekend has always looked different. Held beneath floodlights on the Marina Bay Street Circuit, the race transforms the city into a nocturnal spectacle of speed, heat and saturated colour. It is this distinctive atmosphere — and one of Singapore’s most important natural symbols — that has shaped IWC Schaffhausen’s latest motorsport-inspired watch. …
Continue reading “IWC’s purple Formula 1 chronograph pays tribute to Singapore after dark”
Wall Street’s hottest momentum trade has reversed sharply, as former winners tumble and heavily shorted stocks surge.
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Wall Street’s hottest trade has gone ice cold.
For years, it paid off to buy stocks that were rising in price—and bet against struggling shares. The momentum trade was especially profitable this year, as investors piled into hot stocks including Micron Technology, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and other artificial-intelligence darlings while wagering against those likely to be hurt by the embrace of AI.
The S&P 500 Momentum Index soared 44% in the second quarter, its best quarterly performance on record, and it surged 133% over the past five years, nearly double the broad market’s performance.
Mega funds and rookie investors alike piled into the trade, some using leverage and options contracts in an effort to amplify their returns, propelling the underlying shares higher.
“It is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Matthew Tym, managing director at Cantor Fitzgerald, of the trade.
Suddenly, the trade is a loser. The momentum index has tumbled more than 9% since July 1, lagging behind the S&P 500’s 2.8% gain. The index—which tracks stocks in the S&P 500 based on a “momentum score”—is on track for the biggest quarterly underperformance in 25 years. July was the second-worst month for the momentum trade in around 40 years, according to Bank of America estimates; the only month worse was April 2009, in the teeth of the global financial crisis.
Hedge funds that bought momentum shares while shorting low-momentum stocks suffered even more. At the same time, a basket of the most popular stocks held by hedge funds tracked by Goldman Sachs recorded its biggest one-month underperformance in July relative to the S&P 500 in more than 20 years, according to the bank’s analysts.
Momentum trading is based on a rather simple observation: Investments that go up tend to keep outperforming; those that underperform often remain laggards. This kind of trading might seem too simple a stock-picking strategy to work. Yet it often has.
“For decades, it didn’t take a lot of sophistication to run a momentum strategy and make a decent living at it,” says Agustin Lebron, senior researcher at EquiLibre, a trading firm.
Part of the reason: It takes a while for corporate and other information to spread to various investors, so they slowly build positions, producing buying momentum.
“A huge pension fund can’t flip around its positions in a day,” says Lebron. “Behavioral biases also account for some of the effect, as well—people tend to sell their winners too early and hold losers too long.”
Fans of the strategy point to the human tendency to extrapolate from past results—and chase investment returns—noting that momentum patterns have been evident in markets for decades, even centuries. They also say that some of the worst months for momentum strategies are during longer periods of outperformance.
Some have been doing the trade by buying the strongest investments in a sector while shorting the weakest; others lean in to rising markets or asset classes. Still others use a quantitative approach or turn to banks or others who sell ways to make distinct wagers on momentum as a “tradable factor” or a “thematic basket.”
The fans remain believers. “Any strategy has disappointing periods,” says Antti Ilmanen, global co-head of the portfolio solutions group at AQR Capital Management.
The surge in Moderna and other biotech stocks helped crush the momentum trade. These shares were among the most heavily shorted in recent years, but positive news on a cancer vaccine from Moderna and Merck sent those stocks flying, crushing some quant and other hedge funds. Moderna is up around 150% so far this month.
These traders had an especially rough day on Aug. 19, which Goldman Sachs told its clients was the worst day for “systematic long-short managers” in more than two years. About half of the losses were because of momentum trades, the bank said.
Some traders have begun to short, or bet against, the very stocks that propelled the momentum trade earlier this year. Net short positions in futures tied to the Nasdaq-100 index among speculators recently climbed to some of the highest levels of the past two decades, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The about-face is a sign of how markets have become more treacherous for investors, even as indexes keep climbing. Part of the issue: the recent meltdown of Situational Awareness, a hedge fund that had piled into some of the most popular momentum shares, including chip stocks. After a period of market tumult, Nvidia shares rocketed almost 9% after its earnings, showing how quickly sentiment can shift.
Some investors say the run-up in share prices driving tech stocks higher reminds them at times of the dot-com frenzy decades ago.
Mike Ogborne, the founder of San Francisco-based Ogborne Capital Management, said he has grown more cautious on technology stocks and is keeping more of his portfolio in cash than he typically does.
And he is nervous about the surge in spending by technology giants and quarterly capital expenditures that keep rising.
“It is a little bit like Cinderella and the clock striking midnight. You don’t know when midnight is going to come around,” Ogborne said. “They don’t send a memo around telling you when the capex cycle is over.”
Ophora Tallawong has launched its final release of quality apartments priced under $700,000.
High-end homeowners are choosing to upgrade rather than relocate, investing in bespoke design, premium finishes and long-term lifestyle value.
