Betsey Stevenson: Senate Small Business Committee hearing testimony

Chairman Rubia ranking member card and
members of the committee thank you so

much for the invitation to be here today I
mean you've heard about the importance of

entrepreneurship and
jobs I want to address the fact that

technology is changing both
entrepreneurship and jobs.

Rather than eliminating many types of
jobs as is often reported in the press or

feared what technological change is
likely to do is change the tasks

that workers do in jobs MIT researchers
have gone occupation by occupation

looking at the multiple tasks that are
done and shown that most jobs will have

tasks that are eliminated by technological
change by artificial intelligence and

machine learning but very few if any jobs
will be completely eliminated by the so

the future holds a world in which jobs

almost all of them need to be redesigned
and they need to be redesigned in a way to

take advantage of the comparative
advantage of human workers preparing.

People for

the jobs the way jobs will change requires
greater investment in education and

worker training today's workers get only a
few hours of training from their employers

while workers generations ago
received much greater training from

their employers apprenticeship programs
that I know Miss York will speak about

are that receive public funding provide
compensation to workers and encourage

employers to take a chance on new
workers are essential to this change but

these programs must adapt to the changing
jobs of the U.S. economy the U.S.

economy is a service based economy 84
percent of workers employed in the private

sector are in the services a 3rd of our
exports is services and these are where

the good jobs are and the good exports
are and where we're growing our exports

internationally are comparative advantages
are highly skilled workforce but

we are losing ground to other countries
to preserve our place in the global labor

market we must make sure more American
successfully complete college in the last

century we made it possible for nearly
all Americans to get a high school degree

even though other developed countries told
us it was impossible they said some people

were simply not suited for higher
education higher meaning high school today

were making the same arguments about
our own citizens while other developed

countries succeed with a much higher
percent of their citizens completing

college in the U.S. nearly 2 thirds of
young people start a college degree but

inadequate financial support
the challenges of raising a family while

in school for some and insufficient
education prior to college in other words

the failure of our school system before
you get to college mean that only 36

percent of people in their late twenty's
and early thirty's have actually

completed a college degree we can and
should have the majority of our young

people successfully completing college let
me address the 2nd aspect of redesigning.

Work total work hours may decline the
challenge is not about making sure that

work doesn't decline it's making sure that
it declines only in the desired way and

that it doesn't create the marginalization
of communities without work historically

technological change has reduced work we
no longer essential turned into factories

we now enjoy retirement and
some people choose to stay home and

raise their children focus on their
families in their communities rather than

work this is not a bad thing we have
thought that this was a good choice so

what can we do to make sure that those
any change in ours is done in a positive

way we need to provide an infrastructure
that supports working families and allows

some importantly broadly shared declines
in work a decline in working while sick

a decline in working while dealing with a
medical crisis of a loved one while having

a newborn in the home people being able
to afford to take time out of work and

then get back to work once these crises
have passed or once a newborn is ready.

To be left in childcare too often
people are completely pushed

out of the labor force when they're forced
to choose between family obligations and

work roughly half of parents say that they
have turned down a job because they could

not make it work with their family needs
that's a lot of parents who are forced to

make very difficult choices paid sick
leave encourages workers to stay home when

they're sick with contagious diseases
this benefits businesses and

improves overall productivity but sick
leave policies that allow workers to stay

home to care for a loved 1 May not
directly benefit their employer but

they do directly benefit society and
that's why government has a role in

ensuring that all people have access to
that kind of leave similarly parental

leave policies generate benefits for
society private providing health and

development benefits to children
the one last thing I want to mention

is the importance of Congress
in this committee to.

Sure that we are building trust in society
there's been a large decline in trust and

some of that decline in trust
is connected to not having

that infrastructure that
supports working families.

People who do not trust other people
are not themselves trustworthy and

that is something that impedes our
entrepreneurship it impedes our economic

growth because we divert resources
towards monitoring people rather

than being more productive in our day
to day world and they're Thank you.