Governments’ Role in Nurturing ‘Launchpad Jobs’
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AI is stripping learning opportunities from the kind of entry-level positions that could lead to better things. States and localities have the tools to respond, but they need to coordinate those efforts.
The earliest effects of artificial intelligence on work are landing not in mass layoffs but at the job entry point where young people learn how to work. That shift creates a governing problem that no one in state or local government clearly owns.
Responsibility for helping students move from school to a first job is spread across high schools, colleges, local workforce boards, apprenticeship offices and state labor agencies. When everyone owns a problem in part, no one owns it at all.
The evidence is hard to ignore. In September, the Census Bureau found that since ChatGPT arrived, graduates of the most AI-exposed college majors, led by computer science, were less likely to find a job right after graduation. Those who did earned about 13 percent less than graduates in less-exposed fields — comparable to graduating into a severe recession — and more of them started in retail and restaurants. For graduates in moderately exposed fields, first jobs came later but mostly caught up.
Washington is asking its own questions. At a recent Senate subcommittee hearing on AI and the workforce, those questions were familiar ones: How many jobs will AI eliminate? In which occupations? A better question came from Justin Heck of Opportunity@Work, who warned the senators about the hollowing-out of gateway jobs, the customer-service and entry-level roles that have long been steppingstones to career success for workers without four-year degrees.
Half of AI-exposed occupations, Heck noted, are gateway roles. If AI strips the on-the-job learning from those jobs while leaving them intact, workers lose the career ladder without ever being pushed off it. Nobody gets laid off, but nobody gets promoted either.
The Burning Glass Institute calls gateway roles that reliably teach skills “launchpad jobs.” It found, for example, that bank tellers who learn how loan decisions get made move into loan officer roles at two to three times their starting pay. Yet only about 1 in 10 18-year-olds lands a strong launchpad job on their first try. And job listings rarely tell them which jobs lead somewhere.
States and localities already hold the tools to respond, and each maps onto a basic function of government: spending, setting standards, measuring results and informing the public. But each function sits in a different agency, or each agency has its own approach to these issues, with little or no agency coordination.
Take spending. Community colleges can retool programs faster than most universities, and Workforce Pell now funds short-term training. But a recent Brookings analysis argues that generic AI literacy courses won’t do. Workers need hands-on training in their own field, designed with employers. As states decide which programs qualify for Workforce Pell, they should also ask whether a program leads to a job that still teaches, not just one that pays on day one.
Next, standards. In many states, apprenticeship agencies register programs and set standards. Registered apprenticeships are expanding into healthcare and finance, pairing paid work with structured learning where gateway jobs are thinning. They may matter even more as AI makes grades and resumes less reliable, because they let employers watch new workers perform.
Then measurement. The Census study was possible only because state higher education systems, from Texas and Ohio to Georgia and Utah, shared graduate records that the bureau linked to wage data. States that connect education and earnings records can see what AI is doing to their young workers. States that don’t are flying blind.
Washington can help. The bipartisan AI Workforce PREPARE Act, discussed at the Senate hearing, would use AI-informed projections to update the in-demand occupation lists states use to steer training dollars. It would also encourage states and localities to collect labor market data more consistently.
Finally, information. High school counselors have rich data on which colleges place students well, but almost none on which first jobs lead somewhere. State agencies already collect the wage records to change that if they choose to connect the dots.
None of this requires waiting on Congress. It does require deciding who will coordinate these governance functions. Governors could designate a lead agency or cabinet-level council for the passage from school to first job, with the data and authority to act.
Someone has to own the first rung. For now, the likeliest owners are policymakers in statehouses and city halls.
Bruno V. Manno is a senior adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute and a former U.S. assistant secretary of education for policy. He can be reached on LinkedIn.
Governing‘s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing‘s editors or management.
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