Latest news with #economic
Fox News
2 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
New study reveals threats to the Class of 2025. Fixing them should be Job No. 1 for America
This summer should be bringing the Class of 2025 a moment of well-deserved relaxation before they launch their careers. Instead, far too many college and high-school graduates are filled with anxiety. They've applied for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of jobs, but interviews and offers have become increasingly rare. The national unemployment rate for young adults aged 20 to 24 looking for work is 6.6% — the highest level in a decade, excluding the pandemic unemployment spike. Among those without college degrees the situation is even more dire: The unemployment rate for high-school graduates aged 18 to 19 is 14.5%. The precipitous reduction of entry-level hiring has been blamed on tariff-induced economic uncertainty and employers betting that artificial intelligence advances will reduce labor needs. Once there is greater clarity on both fronts, many expect hiring to increase. But what if this is more than a short-term blip? A major new study by research consultancy HarrisX, funded by our family foundation, reveals that school-to-work pathways for millions of young Americans — both those with and without college degrees — are far more deeply fractured than previously known, posing a significant threat to building the future workforce essential to growing the U.S. economy. More than four in 10 young people say both the education system and the employment resources to which they have access are broken and not providing them effective guidance. And they worry employment will become even more difficult as AI impacts the job market: Nearly half said they feel unprepared, or are unsure of their preparation, for jobs of the future. The study reveals how a broad swath of Generation Z between 16 and 24 years old remains far from tapping its full potential because of systemic inertia that leaves too many young people stranded at the start of their careers. Many young people are not being adequately served by the institutions they encounter at every stage of their journey into adulthood, from high schools that do not expose students to a range of careers and non-college training pathways to achieve good jobs, to employers who are unwilling to invest in building hard and soft skills among new hires. This broken marketplace has significant consequences for the future of the U.S. economy, particularly efforts by the Trump administration to increase domestic industrial production, which will require a larger pipeline of skilled workers. Our nation has millions of open jobs — more than 7 million of them, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The problem for the Class of 2025, and many other jobseekers, is that the skills taught in our high schools and colleges aren't aligned with what many businesses need, especially advanced manufacturers. Many of those unfilled jobs — and more so in the future — require applicants to possess more than just a high-school or college degree. Yet too many young adults lack the guidance and resources to acquire the necessary skills and credentials. Too often, adults fault young people for not demonstrating more initiative and gumption in their journey into working life. But everyone who engages with young adults is responsible: Nearly 80% of parents rely on their own dated personal experiences and input from friends and family — as opposed to outside resources — to guide their children. Eighty-five percent of educators and career navigators don't collaborate with employers. More than three-in-four employers require at least a year of experience from those seeking entry-level jobs, yet most do not offer internships, apprenticeships or other programs designed to provide early-career experience. Having been connected to a Fortune 500 company for three decades, we know well the pressure to use every dollar to grow the bottom line. But our businesses and our overall economy won't thrive over the long run if firms don't invest in creating new opportunities for workers. Our nation has millions of open jobs — more than 7 million of them, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. One of the innovations at Starbucks of which we are most proud has nothing to do with coffee. It was the decision to offer every Starbucks barista the opportunity to launch new careers by enrolling online at Arizona State University for free. To date, more than 16,000 of them have graduated with bachelor's degrees — vaulting many into new roles inside and outside the company, with an average pay increase of $40,000 within 18 months. The alarming headline about recent graduates should bolt us out of our complacency. Too many of our systems were designed for a different era. The old model of earning a degree and staying with one employer for decades no longer fits today's dynamic workforce. The challenge now is to build a better marketplace — one that is nimble, forward-looking, and grounded in the realities of a global, tech-driven economy. That marketplace requires embracing the power of AI to help repair what it is destroying: AI-powered agents and other tech tools that can help young people navigate options with more clarity. By surfacing internships, training programs, and regionally relevant opportunities, we can meet students with the right guidance at the right time. We need more relevant insights about emerging opportunities, the value of different pathways and credentials, and labor-market disruptions. We also must embrace a fundamental change in how we all learn, from a learn-then-work model to a world of lifelong learning, hands-on skills, and fluid pathways across industries. As ASU President Michael Crow puts it, the mission of education is not to "complete" a student; it is to launch a learner for life. Only then can this generation achieve a real chance to rise and achieve a new American Dream. This is moment to build a future that delivers progress not just for the Class of 2025, but for every class after them. Sheri Kersch Schultz is co-founder and chair of the Schultz Family Foundation.
Entrepreneur
2 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
How Culture Shapes Success More Than Capital or Innovation
Entrepreneurs who treat culture as an add-on rather than the foundational context that shapes all business rules and behaviors are setting themselves up for failure. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Entrepreneurship is not simply a matter of innovation or capital investment. It is the act of entering a domain — an economic spacetime — defined by its own norms, expectations and conduct. Entrepreneurs often refer to these contextual forces as "culture," but they rarely unpack what this term truly means. In practice, culture is not an abstract or academic concern; it is the very infrastructure that governs business behavior in a given domain. A business domain is not just a market opportunity. It is a new geography or a different industry that an entrepreneur steps into to venture a business or to initiate a new transaction. Each domain is embedded in a specific spacetime, and each spacetime inherits a living, breathing culture. Entrepreneurs who fail to understand this culture face constraints not because of written laws, but because of unwritten norms — what people expect, how they interact, what they value and how they trust. The interdependency between law and culture Culture is not separate from the law. It is the foundation of it. Contemporary legal systems are not engineered in a vacuum; they are legislated through the lens of prevailing socio-economic customs. These customs form the invisible boundary of what is acceptable or expected. Thus, culture is the primary source of legal context, not merely its reflection. Laws are written with assumptions about how people behave. They are structured around what society permits and prohibits, which is itself a derivative of culture. Understanding this interdependency between law and culture is not optional for entrepreneurs — it is foundational. The governing rules of any spacetime, be they legal or commercial, reflect the conduct of the people within it. They mirror the accepted norms, the unwritten etiquette of interaction and the systemic trust or distrust that fuels the economy. In simpler terms, the rules of the game are set by how the society functions. And society functions according to the culture that shapes it. Yet most entrepreneurs approach culture as a peripheral topic, something to be managed through branding, communication or internal HR. That is a mistake. Culture is not an add-on to business. It is the context in which the business exists. Studying regulations without studying culture is like learning the words of a language without understanding their meaning. You may comply on paper but fail in practice. Business culture must not be generalized or imported. It must be adaptive and contextual. Every entrepreneurial venture is embedded in a local spacetime, and the organization's culture must reflect that. A business operating in Tokyo cannot assume the cultural rules of Seattle. A startup in fintech must not adopt the same cultural principles as a legacy manufacturing firm. Organizational culture, in this sense, is not a choice — it is a necessity. It must reflect the spacetime in which the business operates. This is why cultural studies are more essential than regulatory studies for entrepreneurs. Legal compliance is procedural. Cultural alignment is strategic. Councils and legal advisors may provide interpretations of existing regulations, but it is the entrepreneur — who architects the enterprise — who must understand the deeper context that surrounds those laws. Without this understanding, legal compliance becomes shallow, and the organization remains culturally incompatible with the domain it seeks to serve. Entrepreneurs must become anthropologists of their target spacetime. They must study the living patterns of behavior, the symbolic codes, the assumptions and the embedded logics that people carry in their daily economic transactions. These are not just soft insights. They are the operating system of the domain. The more an entrepreneur understands these codes, the better positioned they are to design a business model that fits, rather than disrupts, the flow of that spacetime. Cultural alignment is not only about market entry. It defines internal operations as well. How people work, how they communicate, how they evaluate risk and how they define leadership — these are all cultural constructs. An organization built without reference to the culture in which it operates will struggle with internal coherence. It may recruit the right talent, develop the right products and access the right capital, but it will suffer from persistent misalignment with its environment. That misalignment is what causes business models to fail — not the lack of innovation, but the lack of resonance. Furthermore, understanding culture allows the entrepreneur to decode the "why" behind every regulation. When you grasp the cultural foundations of a society, you no longer see laws as arbitrary rules to follow. You see them as social contracts emerging from a collective understanding of order, fairness and risk. This is crucial because it transforms the entrepreneur's relationship with the legal environment — from external compliance to internal coherence. The mindset shift you need to make What does this mean in practical terms? It means the entrepreneur must shift from a legalistic mindset to a contextual one. Instead of asking, "What are the rules?" they must ask, "Why do these rules exist in this form, at this time, in this place?" That question leads to a deeper appreciation of the spacetime context and informs better decision-making — not only for legal and operational planning but also for brand positioning, partnership formation and long-term scaling. The entrepreneur's role is to synthesize. Not just to bring together capital, labor and technology, but to fuse their venture with the cultural DNA of the domain they enter. This synthesis is what makes a business not just viable but sustainable. It allows the business to evolve with its spacetime rather than against it. In the end, entrepreneurship is a contextual act. It does not exist in a vacuum. It is always situated, always embedded, always bound by the spacetime it occupies. Success does not come from disrupting blindly; it comes from aligning wisely. Entrepreneurs must, therefore, treat culture not as a variable but as a constant — one that defines the possibilities and limits of their business domain.
ABC News
4 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
PM aims to strengthen ties with China as six-day visit begins
The Prime Minister has begun his visit to China with a walk down Shanghai's famous waterfront, with an ex-Socceroos star. Anthony Albanese wants to use the Shanghai leg of his visit, to highlight sporting, economic and tourism links between Australia and China.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mexico is in talks to avoid Trump's latest tariff threat
(Bloomberg) — Mexico is negotiating with the US to avoid a set of 30% tariffs that President Donald Trump has threatened to impose on the Latin American country starting on Aug. 1. Singer Akon's Failed Futuristic City in Senegal Ends Up a $1 Billion Resort Why Did Cars Get So Hard to See Out Of? Can Americans Just Stop Building New Highways? How German Cities Are Rethinking Women's Safety — With Taxis Philadelphia Trash Piles Up as Garbage Workers' Strike Drags On Mexico and the US established a new binational working group on Friday to address security, migration and economic issues, according to a statement posted on Saturday by Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard on X. The first major task of the group will be to find an alternative to the tariffs and 'protect jobs on both sides of the border,' the statement read. 'We told the group that this treatment is unfair and that we're not in agreement,' read the statement, jointly signed by the Economy and the Foreign Affairs Ministries. Trump published his latest tariff threats early Saturday, saying Mexico would be subject to the 30% rate for not doing enough to fight fentanyl trafficking, even though the country has made strides in helping secure the border with the US. The U.S. doesn't intend to apply the 30% rate to USMCA-compliant goods, according to a White House official. The situation remains fluid, the official cautioned. The administration has previously said it will keep the exemption for Canada. Continuing the exclusion for both Mexico and Canada narrows the scope of Trump's continental tariffs and would be a lifeline to sectors like the auto industry that rely heavily on the USMCA pact — which was renegotiated under Trump's first term. The US president said the 30% tariffs are separate from sectoral ones and could be raised if Mexico retaliates. 'Mexico still has not stopped the Cartels who are trying to turn all of North America into a Narco-Trafficking Playground,' Trump wrote. ' If Mexico is successful in challenging the Cartels and stopping the flow of Fentanyl, we will consider an adjustment to this letter.' He said Mexico has many other non-tariff trade barriers that have created an 'unsustainable' trade deficit with the US. Trump's Cuts Are Making Federal Data Disappear 'Our Goal Is to Get Their Money': Inside a Firm Charged With Scamming Writers for Millions Will Trade War Make South India the Next Manufacturing Hub? Soccer Players Are Being Seriously Overworked Trade War? No Problem—If You Run a Trade School ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mexico Is in Talks to Avoid Trump's Latest Tariff Threat
(Bloomberg) -- Mexico is negotiating with the US to avoid a set of 30% tariffs that President Donald Trump has threatened to impose on the Latin American country starting on Aug. 1. Singer Akon's Failed Futuristic City in Senegal Ends Up a $1 Billion Resort Why Did Cars Get So Hard to See Out Of? Can Americans Just Stop Building New Highways? How German Cities Are Rethinking Women's Safety — With Taxis Philadelphia Trash Piles Up as Garbage Workers' Strike Drags On Mexico and the US established a new binational working group on Friday to address security, migration and economic issues, according to a statement posted on Saturday by Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard on X. The first major task of the group will be to find an alternative to the tariffs and 'protect jobs on both sides of the border,' the statement read. 'We told the group that this treatment is unfair and that we're not in agreement,' read the statement, jointly signed by the Economy and the Foreign Affairs Ministries. Trump published his latest tariff threats early Saturday, saying Mexico would be subject to the 30% rate for not doing enough to fight fentanyl trafficking, even though the country has made strides in helping secure the border with the US. The U.S. doesn't intend to apply the 30% rate to USMCA-compliant goods, according to a White House official. The situation remains fluid, the official cautioned. The administration has previously said it will keep the exemption for Canada. Continuing the exclusion for both Mexico and Canada narrows the scope of Trump's continental tariffs and would be a lifeline to sectors like the auto industry that rely heavily on the USMCA pact — which was renegotiated under Trump's first term. The US president said the 30% tariffs are separate from sectoral ones and could be raised if Mexico retaliates. 'Mexico still has not stopped the Cartels who are trying to turn all of North America into a Narco-Trafficking Playground,' Trump wrote. ' If Mexico is successful in challenging the Cartels and stopping the flow of Fentanyl, we will consider an adjustment to this letter.' He said Mexico has many other non-tariff trade barriers that have created an 'unsustainable' trade deficit with the US. Trump's Cuts Are Making Federal Data Disappear 'Our Goal Is to Get Their Money': Inside a Firm Charged With Scamming Writers for Millions Will Trade War Make South India the Next Manufacturing Hub? Soccer Players Are Being Seriously Overworked Trade War? No Problem—If You Run a Trade School ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
