The Latest – Pay Gap Widening, More Jobs Lost in September, OSHA Gets New Head, Back-to-Office Orders, Report: Little ROI on AI, More Employees Staying Put
Recent U.S. Census data indicate that the already considerable pay gap between men and women in the workplace is widening in this country.
The latest compensation report, which compares the median earnings of women and men employed full-time, year-round, found that the female-to-male earnings ratio in 2024 fell to 80.9%, down from 82.7% in 2023, and 84% in 2022. This translates to a median annual salary of $71,000 for men and $57,500 for women.
This is the second consecutive annual decrease in the female-to-male earnings ratio—the first time this has happened in more than 60 years.
Other findings:
- While median earnings for men increased 3.7% from 2023-2024, wages did not change significantly for women during that time.
- Black women working full-time earned $0.65 for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men in 2024. That’s down from $0.66 in 2023 and $0.69 in 2022.
- Both Hispanic women and Native American women working full-time earned approximately $0.58 for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men in 2024, roughly unchanged from 2023 and 2022.
September’s National Employment Report, published monthly by payroll provider ADP, found that the private sector lost 32,000 jobs last month. The report is an independent measure of the labor market based on the anonymized weekly payroll data of more than 26 million private-sector employees in the U.S.
“Despite the strong economic growth we saw in the second quarter, this month’s release further validates what we’ve been seeing in the labor market, that U.S. employers have been cautious with hiring,” said Dr. Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.
Jobs gains/losses by industry include:
- Service-providing: -28,000
- Leisure/hospitality: -19,000
- Other services: -16,000
- Professional/business services: -13,000
- Financial activities: -9,000
- Trade/transportation/utilities: -7,000
- Construction: -5,000
- Manufacturing: -2,000
- Education/health services: +33,000
- Natural resources/mining: +4,000
- Information services: +3,000
On Oct. 8, the Senate confirmed Donald Trump’s nomination of David Keeling to lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as the Assistant Secretary of Labor.
Keeling’s resume includes working as a leader in health and safety at UPS for more than 30 years and working at Amazon for two years as director of global road and transportation safety.
Keeling said during his confirmation hearing that he will focus on three goals during his tenure at OSHA:
- Improving regulatory oversight and rule making
- Promoting cooperation and collaboration among employers, unions, and safety professional groups
- Transforming enforcement through technology, such as predictive analytics.
Heat illness prevention regulations will be one of the first issues Keeling is likely to deal with. OSHA has been working for some time on a nationwide heat safety standard for employees who work outside, including construction crews, warehouse workers, and farmworkers. The standard, which was the topic of a summer hearing and a recently closed comment period, is being opposed by many business leaders because of concerns about the cost of compliance.
The return-to-work bandwagon gained more steam this month, when Google joined the lengthening list of companies—tech companies in particular—that continue to retract the work-from-home policies they instituted during the Covid pandemic.
In doing so, Google joins Microsoft, which announced in September is bringing employees back to the office three days a week, starting next year. Previously, Microsoft allowed most employees to work from home half of the time.
Shortly afterward, a widely circulated memo from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy informed his corporate employees that the company’s work-from-home policy would become a thing of the past next year, when corporate employees are expected to be in the office five days a week.
Now Google has restructured an element of its Covid-era work-from-home policy, which had permitted employees to “work from anywhere” for up to four weeks a year. Now, when an employee chooses to work outside of their main office for even a single day in one week, that day will count toward their four-week work-from-anywhere allowance.
A recently released report on AI implementation by MIT’s NANDA project has found that, despite the enormous investments large companies have made into AI, the vast majority have gained no ROI to speak of.
The report, based on a study of more than 300 publicly disclosed AI initiatives, interviews with representatives from 52 companies, and 153 interviews with senior corporate leaders, found that despite some $30 – $40 billion in enterprise investment into GenAI, 95% of organizations are getting no return.
“Just 5% of integrated AI pilots are extracting millions in value,” the report reads, “while the vast majority remain stuck with no measurable P&L impact.”
The reason for this, the report concludes, is that while many employees are widely using ChatGPT and Copilot at work, these AI tools primarily enhance individual productivity—not company performance. At the same time, pricey customized or vendor-purchased enterprise-grade AI systems meant to boost company-wide efficiencies are remaining unused. “Sixty percent of organizations [have] evaluated such tools,” the report states, “but only 20% reached pilot stage, and just 5% reached production.”
The biggest barrier to realizing the high potential ROI enterprise systems promise, says MIT’s researchers, “is not infrastructure, regulation, or talent. It is learning. Most GenAI systems do not retain feedback, adapt to context, or improve over time.”
The companies that are realizing savings from their AI adoption are doing so by leveraging their tools in back-office operations such as customer support, software engineering, and administrative functions, the report concludes, enabling them to reduce spending on outsourcing non-core business functions to third-party providers.
A report released Oct. 7 by Eagle Hill, a consulting firm that gauges employee sentiment, found that the number of employees indicating their intention to stay with their employers for at least the next six months is rising. Eagle Hill’s latest research indicates that employee sentiment is up, especially regarding workers’ confidence in both their organizational leadership and in their ability to increase their compensation at their organization.
Millennial workers and women are among the groups most likely to say they plan to stay with their employer, while Gen X workers and men signal that they are more likely to move on in the coming months.
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The information contained in this site is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter.
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