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<ul><li>50% of employees are preparing for new opportunities by reskilling/upskilling. </li><li>28%of those who’re looking for jobs have said that they will prioritize happiness and flexibility. </li><li>Ongoing <keyword id="6357067" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="layoffs" source="Orion">layoffs</keyword> are impacting the employees in such a way that 65% of them are unwilling to go the extra mile in their jobs. </li><li>Over 35% of employers are looking forward to adopting AI/digital/social media for talent acquisition in 2023.</li></ul>The pandemic has not only changed the way people work, but also led them to reconsider how they want their career to progress. According to the October’22 - December’22 <keyword id="15857414" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="quarterly-hiring-tracker" source="Orion">quarterly hiring tracker</keyword> report by job search engine <keyword id="6035866" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indeed-India" source="Orion">Indeed India</keyword>, more than half of all the employees (57%) are unenthusiastic about or bored with their current jobs. In fact, 50% of employees are preparing for new opportunities by reskilling/upskilling. Mental health matters the most for employees now. About 28% of those looking for new jobs have said that they will prioritize happiness and flexibility and 19% have indicated that a good work life balance is a priority. “2022 has been characterized by various shifts in the workplace - from trends like quiet quitting to moonlighting gaining prominence. Going into 2023, it is evident that employees are prioritizing mental wellbeing and work life balance amidst the various fluctuations that are occurring in the world of work,” <keyword id="323873" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="sashi-kumar" source="Orion">Sashi Kumar</keyword>, head of sales, Indeed <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword> said. The ongoing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/if-youve-been-laid-off-heres-how-you-handle-awkward-questions-from-your-next-employer/articleshow/96245166.cms">layoffs</a> have also had a debilitating impact on employees, with 65% of them unwilling to go the extra mile in their jobs, as per the report. “Given the market uncertainties and economic climate, jobseekers are hesitant in their current work, demotivated by layoffs and are not willing to fully commit to their current job as well,” said the Indeed India report. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Positive sentiment around hiring in 2023" comment="subhead" text="Positive sentiment around hiring in 2023">Positive sentiment around hiring in 2023</cmsannotation> Employers, across all sectors, are keen to step up their <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/indias-hiring-intent-rises-in-q4-led-by-positive-sentiment-in-ecommerce-telecom-and-educational-services-industries/articleshow/96424123.cms">hiring</a> processes in 2023. Over 35% of employers are even looking forward to adopting AI/digital/social media for talent acquisition and 26% of them are planning to explore hyper-local/niche job boards. Overall, 45% of employers surveyed foresee an increase of as much as 20% in hiring. This indicates a change from the sentiment at the end of 2022 that saw slower hiring. Only 64% of the surveyed employers hired between October to December- this marks a significant dip (down from 78%) and reflects a slower pace of hiring activity compared to the previous two quarters, as per the report. “As organizations wait to see how global movements affect the Indian jobs landscape, it’ll be integral for them to also relook at workplace culture and the current sentiment at work, in order to retain talent,” Kumar added. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/indias-hiring-intent-rises-in-q4-led-by-positive-sentiment-in-ecommerce-telecom-and-educational-services-industries/articleshow/96424123.cms">India’s hiring intent rises in Q4 led by positive sentiment in ecommerce, telecom and educational services industries</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/work-from-office-moonlighting-mental-well-being-workplace-trends-of-2022-that-are-likely-to-persist-in-the-new-year/articleshow/96423772.cms">Work from office, moonlighting, mental well-being — Workplace trends of 2022 that are likely to persist in the new year</a>

Over half of the employees in India bored with their current jobs: Indeed

<ul><li>A new Indeed report reveals that 81% of the employees don’t wish to take up another job alongside the one they currently work in and cited the practice to be ‘<keyword id="933295" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="unethical" source="Orion">unethical</keyword>’. </li><li>However, 19% of the employees in India are interested in <keyword id="64527" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="moonlighting" source="Orion">moonlighting</keyword>, according to the <keyword id="14814201" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="indeed-hiring-tracker" source="Orion">Indeed Hiring Tracker</keyword> report. </li><li>A large percentage of employees in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector, FMCG and manufacturing sector believe moonlighting to be violating the contract.</li></ul>Moonlighting has taken over the conversation in the job sector, with heavy debates on the moral dilemma it poses. In fact, many business leaders regard moonlighting to be ‘cheating’. And as per the Indeed Hiring Tracker report, many Indian employees also consider moonlighting to be an ‘unethical’ practice. A new Indeed report reveals that 81% of the employees don’t wish to take up another job alongside the one they currently work in and cited it to be ‘unethical’. However, 19% of the employees in India are interested in moonlighting, according to the Indeed Hiring Tracker report. The survey was conducted among 1,281 employers and 1,533 jobseekers and employees between July and September, 2022. Moonlighting is a practice in which an employee works more than one job. It means that the employee who is moonlighting concurrently works for a company in a full-time role along with part-time jobs in other companies, typically held secretly. A large percentage of employees in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector, FMCG and manufacturing sector believes moonlighting to be violating the employment contract. While in the IT sector, around 43% of employees find moonlighting favorable. However, business leaders of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/indias-it-giants-are-worried-about-moonlighting-employees-sharing-their-corporate-secrets/articleshow/95077652.cms">tech companies</a> have been very vocal and expressed their concerns about this, calling moonlighting to be ‘cheating’ and ‘illegal and unethical’. In fact, tech major <keyword id="10862" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="wipro" source="Orion">Wipro</keyword> fired 300 employees in the month of August this year, who were found to be moonlighting. As per the report, the top reasons why employees choose to moonlight is to safeguard against job loss (37%) and supplement their incomes (27%). Contrastingly, 23% employers believe that employees moonlight because they have ample time on hand for a second job. “What people want from work has changed forever - It is not just about just clocking in hours and going back home. The pandemic has made employees step back and reevaluate priorities. In an era where talent is valued more than ever, employers are shifting from a focus on employee experience to employee life experience - more open PTOs, flexibility at work, a movement towards hybrid work etc.,” said Sashi Kumar, head of sales, Indeed India. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Employees are stressed and burned out" comment="subhead" text="Employees are stressed and burned out">Employees are stressed and burned out</cmsannotation> Another trend which has been growing in the <keyword id="58378" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-workforce" source="Orion">Indian workforce</keyword> is ‘<keyword id="14609778" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="quiet-quitting" source="Orion">quiet quitting</keyword>’ and employees feel that this is due to stress and burnout among employees. According to the report, 29% of employees surveyed believe that the feeling of burn-out or being overwhelmed with work is the root cause behind this, while 23% believe that lack of support by managers or bosses, has led to the growth of the trend. However, on the other hand, 33% of the employers surveyed believe that low general job satisfaction (boredom, lack of challenges, etc.) is the main reason for the growing trend of quiet quitting. “In the past few weeks there have also been several global uncertainties that have led to layoffs across the globe. Amidst this, it's important for employers to relook at their workplace culture and address the underlying issues that are driving such trends. The world of work is transient right now and we might see more such trends play out as we acclimate to the new normal of work,” Kumar further added. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/big-fat-indian-weddings-back-but-with-slimmer-guest-lists/articleshow/95657820.cms">Big fat Indian weddings back but with slimmer guest lists</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/share-of-domestic-investors-in-real-estate-market-is-rising-colliers/articleshow/95664688.cms">Share of domestic investors in real estate market is rising: Colliers</a>

Not only companies, but employees too find moonlighting ‘unethical’: Indeed report

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Arm CEO Rene Haas said in a recent interview that he needs more engineers to drive AI growth.</li><li>Companies are aggressively recruiting top AI talent, with some offering lucrative compensation.</li></ul>The AI train is running at full steam, but Arm CEO Rene Haas believes there's one thing they need to keep it moving — more engineers.Finding enough talent is "one of the real limiters" to the company's growth, Haas told Bloomberg in a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-25/arm-ceo-rene-haas-ai-will-progress-much-faster-than-the-internet">recent interview.</a>"Our opportunity is broad," he said. "We're in smartphones, PCs, cameras, automobiles, data centers — and all these solutions require more and more innovation. I need more engineers. We're trying to expand globally."Arm is a British semiconductor and software design company. According to an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://investors.arm.com/static-files/dcdd6629-24bb-40ef-ba55-8aca1362205a">SEC filing</a> earlier this year, approximately 83% of the company's 7,096 total employees were involved in engineering activities as of March — increasing from roughly 80% in 2023 and 75% in 2022."Competition for highly skilled personnel, and particularly engineers, can be intense," Arm said in a section of the filing about risk factors facing the business.The comments from Arm and its CEO highlight how the generative artificial intelligence boom following ChatGPT's launch nearly two years ago has led to a talent war for top AI engineers and researchers.A limited pool of researchers and candidates with experience in areas like machine learning and data engineering has allowed AI talent to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/recruiting-ai-talent-ruthless-right-now-ai-ceo-2024-3">become more selective</a> when evaluating job offers. Some tech giants have tried to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-talent-wars-big-tech-ceos-recruiting-paying-huge-packages-2024-4">woo AI specialists</a> with hefty compensation packages or personal reachouts from CEOs like <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-chatgpt-openai-ceo-career-net-worth-ycombinator-prepper-2023-1">Sam Altman</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-meta-net-worth-wealth-rich-list-musk-bezos-2024-9">Mark Zuckerberg</a>.Ram Srinivasan, a future of work expert and managing director of consulting firm JLL, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-workers-real-winners-ai-talent-war-pay-2024-7">previously told Business Insider</a> that the high demand for AI talent has led to offers for top experts topping $1 million in total compensation."This competitive market is pushing up salaries and providing attractive financial incentives for tech workers," he said.According to a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/artificial-intelligence/job-barometer/report.pdf">report from PwC</a>, which analyzes half a billion job ads, roles requiring AI specialist skills can carry up to a 25% wage premium. The research also indicated that growth in AI specialist roles has outpaced all jobs since at least 2016.While tech companies are racing to hire employees with AI expertise, other software developers are struggling not to get left behind amid industry-wide layoffs as companies look to cut costs and reallocate resources. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/news/2024-hiring-workplace-trends">Data from Indeed</a> showed a 45% decrease in job postings since December 2023 in the software development sector.Competition among tech workers has stiffened following the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/layoffs-sweeping-us-these-are-companies-making-cuts-2024">layoffs</a> that swept the tech industry over the last two years following the hiring boom of the pandemic. According to layoffs-tracker <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://layoffs.fyi/">Layoffs.fyi</a>, over 264,000 employees were laid off from 1,193 tech companies in 2023, nearly 99,00 more than 2022. So far in 2024, over 141,000 employees have been laid off by 476 companies.As of Monday, Arm had nearly 300 engineering-related roles open on its jobs site.

Arm CEO says AI growth is being limited by finding enough talent: 'I need more engineers'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Some workers could lose their jobs due to AI, even if the tech doesn't directly replace them.</li><li>Some companies have laid off workers to help clear the way for their massive AI investments.</li></ul>Even if AI doesn't <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-jobs-at-risk-replacement-artificial-intelligence-ai-labor-trends-2023-02">replace you</a>, it could still be to blame if you get laid off.Since the beginning of 2023, global tech companies have laid off more than 350,000 workers, according to data from the online tracker <a target="_blank" href="http://Layoffs.fyi">Layoffs.fyi</a>. This includes US giants like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs">Google</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-layoffs-tim-cook-getting-serious-challenges-car-china-iphone-2024-4">Apple</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-layoffs">Amazon</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-layoffs-zuckerberg-productivity-year-efficiency-innovation-2023-3">Meta</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-cuts-azure-jobs-cloud-2024-6">Microsoft</a>.Industry executives and experts have pointed to several reasons for the layoffs, including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ceos-explain-the-tech-layoffs-mark-zuckeberg-sundar-pichai-2024-2024-6">overhiring during the pandemic</a>. But as tech firms plan to invest <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/big-tech-ai-spend-capex-1-trillion-2024-5">billions of dollars</a> in generative AI technologies, there's been another explanation for job cuts.They need money to fund their AI spending.In the coming years, companies will spend an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-return-investment-disappointing-goldman-sachs-report-2024-6">estimated $1 trillion</a> in combined generative AI investments that will go toward data centers, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-ai-chip-semiconductors-tsmc-intel-jobs-arizona-2024-2">chips</a>, and the power grid, according to a report from Goldman Sachs. To help fund these investments — and clear the way for the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ai-stocks-to-invest-artificial-intelligence-data-center-energy-companies-2024-6">AI boom</a> — more companies could cut jobs. While there's been a mountain of speculation about if and when <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/generative-ai-replace-your-job-increase-productivitiy-angus-deaton-2024-4">AI technologies like ChatGPT</a> could displace workers, their near-term impact on job losses could be <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-companies-excuse-job-cuts-tech-layoffs-2024-1">less about job replacement</a> and more about the cost of AI investments. Of course, for workers who lose their jobs, the end result is the same.This is already playing out.In a February earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/05/technology/why-is-big-tech-still-cutting-jobs.html">told</a> analysts that Meta had to lay off workers and manage costs "so we can invest in these long-term, ambitious visions around AI."In a memo published in January, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees that the company would be <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-says-more-layoffs-to-come-2024-1">laying off more workers</a> to make room for other investments, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/26/ai-hiring-frenzy-to-fuel-layoffs-in-other-tech-segments-this-year.html">including AI</a>."The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices," he wrote.Last November, Amazon <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-layoffs-memo-hundreds-job-cuts-alexa-agi-team-2023-11">laid off hundreds of workers</a> in its Alexa division. Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, told his team via email that the company would be "maximizing our resources and efforts focused on generative AI," leading it to "discontinue some initiatives.""A lot of this is really the shift and spend toward the AI revolution," Dan Ives, a Wedbush Securities analyst, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4478773-why-tech-companies-are-laying-off-thousands-of-workers/">told</a> The Hill in February after a series of tech layoffs.It's not just Big Tech. A <a target="_blank" href="https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_us/topics/ceo/ey-ceo-outlook-survey-us-edition-october-2023.pdf">survey</a> of 1,200 CEOs from large companies across the globe, conducted last fall by FT Longitude on behalf of EY, found that 100% of their businesses were making or planning to make "significant investments in generative AI." When asked how they planned to fund these investments, 71% of CEOs said they planned to "reallocate capital" from their technology budgets or other investment budgets — 34% said they planned to raise new capital."Whenever a new technology emerges and is found to be useful, companies decide to invest in that technology and sometimes invest less in other areas," Oded Netzer, a Columbia Business School professor and AI expert, told Business Insider via email.To be sure, these investments in AI are also <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-ai-hiring-frenzy-big-tech-talent-war-2024-3">expected to lead</a> to significant hiring for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-specialists-hiring-big-tech-wall-street-high-paying-jobs-2024-4">AI-related jobs</a> — even if AI technologies begin to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/will-ai-replace-jobs-generative-artificial-intelligence-tools-training-ceos-2024-1">replace some workers</a>. Additionally, it remains to be seen how much AI spending will necessitate job cuts in other business areas, Carl Benedikt Frey, an economist at the University of Oxford, told Business Insider via email."I think it is true that companies are revising their business models in the light of recent developments in AI, cutting back on investment and jobs in other domains in the process," he said. "But the magnitude of this shift is still hard to tell."<h2 id="3b5eabf8-ea8b-4a3a-8785-726ff7a46fe2">The risks of AI job replacement remains to be seen</h2>In the big picture, Netzer said he expects AI technologies to be an "enhancer rather than a replacer of jobs" in the years ahead."For many jobs, AI is likely to enhance our job, allowing us to spend more time on the things we enjoy doing and less time on the mundane," he said.He gave the example of a physician who has to devote precious time with patients typing notes on the computer."We are not far from AI making a transcription of the patient meeting," he said. "But this in unlikely to lead to fewer doctors but rather the doctors being able to spend more quality time with the patient."However, some companies have begun citing AI as a reason for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/duolingo-lays-off-workers-ai-tools-2024-1">job cuts</a> or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-halts-hiring-for-7800-jobs-that-could-be-replaced-by-ai-report-2023-5">hiring cutbacks</a>. A Fiverr <a target="_blank" href="https://investors.fiverr.com/news-releases/news-release-details/majority-companies-72-admit-not-having-comprehensive-plans-place">survey</a> conducted in May of 1,001 US managers, business leaders, and decision-makers who had done layoffs in the prior six months found that the top reason cited for the layoffs was "new technology, where AI could increase efficiencies and reduce head count."Benedikt Frey pointed to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-wont-take-your-job-someone-using-it-will-quote-2024-6">translators</a> as one profession that has seen fewer employment opportunities due to generative AI, per his research."We are indeed already seeing AI having an impact on jobs," he said.Have you lost your job due to AI? Have you used AI tools to save time at work? Share your experience with this reporter at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:jzinkula@businessinsider.com">jzinkula@businessinsider.com</a>.

Your company's AI spending spree could cost you your job

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Indeed's Nick Bunker said we're settling into a time of "a more boring labor market."</li><li>Business Insider looked at how components of the labor market have settled down, like wage growth.</li></ul>If you just recently entered the labor force, you may be curious what happened to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/job-openings-march-jolts-labor-shortage-hiring-market-great-resignation-2022-5">sky-high job openings</a>, the massive number of people quitting during the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quit-job-great-resignation-big-stay-changing-jobs-market-2023-5">Great Resignation</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wage-growth-faster-than-inflation-first-time-2-years-2023-6">hot wage growth</a>.Well, the labor market is looking more like the healthy but boring era of 2018 or 2019, Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Business Insider. That's opposed to the wild swings we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.Bunker said we're seeing less drama in jobs data."That's a good thing in my view," Bunker said, given "an incredibly dramatic" few years.Job growth is still doing great though; the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-wages-growth-in-march-unemployment-rate-labor-market-2024-4">US just added 303,000 jobs in March</a>, although that's a slower pace than during the height of the pandemic recovery.Wage growth has slowed. The share of Americans working or looking for work has held mostly steady since spring 2023. Job openings have also dropped — and have been at a rate of 5.3% for three straight months. The number of layoffs and discharges have been low.And that more boring but steady labor market could be great news for workers and job seekers. Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter's chief economist, told Business Insider the minimal changes are great amid a labor market that's resilient, stable, and robust."Everything is holding on better than most people had predicted," Pollak said.Pollak pointed to employment strength in construction and manufacturing. Construction employment for March was 7.8% higher than the pre-pandemic level in February 2020. Manufacturing employment was 1.4% higher, and its employment was unchanged from this past February to this past March.The long-feared recession following the wild swings of the early pandemic years has yet to emerge and may not even be on the horizon. "I think stability at a time of high interest rates and restrictive monetary policy expected to lead to losses and declines is something to be celebrated," Pollak said. "And, most of the small changes lately have been in the right direction."The US could be in a Goldilocks job market. The four charts below show what that looks like.<h2>Job quitting</h2>People looking for a new job have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pay-job-salary-resesarch-bonus-compensation-negotiation-2023-9">bargaining power</a>, but workers are more likely to stick around their current gigs."Job seekers still have some bargaining power but are less willing to demonstrate that power by leaving their jobs," Bunker said. "With fewer new job opportunities and less of a pay bump for switching roles, more employees are staying put. However, layoff rates are still low, so workers have robust job security compared to pre-pandemic levels."Newly released data for February showed the US quits rate had been 2.2% for four straight months. This rate has cooled down from 3.0% in April 2022. There were 3.5 million quits in February, which the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm">BLS news release</a> noted this metric "was little changed."<h2>Wage growth</h2>Average hourly earnings increased 4.1% from March 2023 to this past March, lower than the year-over-year increase of around 6% in March 2022.Despite that slowdown, wages have recently been growing faster than prices, meaning workers have more buying power."That means real money in the pockets of working families," Julie Su, acting secretary of labor, told Business Insider. "It's exactly what we'd want to see."<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inflation-cpi-food-energy-gas-prices-consumer-price-index-2024-4">Inflation in March</a>, as measured by the year-over-year percent change in the Consumer Price Index, ticked up a little last month, but remains less of a problem than last year. It climbed 3.5% from March 2023 to March 2024, compared to a 3.2% increase from February 2023 to February 2024.Given moderating wage growth, the Fed could be more inclined to lower interest rates later this year. Pollak said the cooler wage growth is "good news for a Fed that's still battling inflation."Job switchers are seeing higher wage growth than people staying, according to the 12-month moving average of median wage growth from the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker">Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker</a>. Wage growth has slowed, though, for both job switchers and stayers."Nominal wage growth may have slowed, but real wage growth — which is what really matters for workers' purchasing power — remains positive and high," Pollak told BI. "Job switchers and current workers are still experiencing solid real wage growth and have clearly retained much of the leverage gained during the pandemic. They are getting recruited, negotiating their job offers, and are receiving counteroffers from old employer's intent on retaining them at historically high rates."<h2>Unemployment insurance claims</h2>Initial claims for unemployment insurance can be a helpful <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/layoffs-sweeping-us-these-are-companies-making-cuts-2024">layoff</a> metric, spiking when lots of people lose their jobs. Right now, the boringly low rate of those initial applications for benefits suggests that any kind of large-scale layoffs still have yet to emerge.Initial claims decreased from the week ending March 30 to the week ending April 6. In general, initial claims have been low so far this year compared to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-weekly-jobless-claims-filings-unemployment-insurance-coronavirus-recession-economy-2020-6">high level of weekly claims during the pandemic</a>."Although there is plenty of speculation that employment has slowed down, recent numbers, including job openings as well as initial jobless claims, continue to indicate that the US labor market has remained stable," Eugenio Alemán, Raymond James' chief economist, said in a note earlier this month.<h2>Unemployment</h2>Back in January 2021 the unemployment rate was 6.4% after spiking into the double digits during the pandemic shutdowns in spring 2020. It has cooled down to 3.8% this past March, just above the historically low rates seen through most of the last two years.Additionally, the number of people who went from being <a target="_blank" href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS17400000">employed to unemployed</a> has not seen too dramatic of a change; this number was around 1.5 million for each of the past few months.<h2>So what will happen to the Goldilocks job market?</h2>"It would be nice to live in a world where we have low unemployment and there's steady, consistent gains in wage growth and more people coming into the labor market," Bunker said. "So hopefully, fingers crossed, dramatic days are behind us and we can see some strong gains for workers, for job seekers. But, not in the way that feels discombobulated."While openings, wage growth, and the hires rate have cooled, the overall labor market can be described as more Goldilocks-like, or not too hot and not too cold."It's a labor market that has strength, and there's a path ahead of it where it can continue to grow in a sustainable manner," Bunker said.Juliana Kaplan contributed reporting.

Looking for a career change? What the new Goldilocks labor market means for job seekers and workers

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Some companies are requiring employees to come back to the office.</li><li>For those who don't want to follow these office policies, the labor market is still hot with jobs.</li></ul>Some people would rather quit or look for a new job instead of working in person.Take one worker who <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/remote-work-return-to-office-quit-job-micromanager-boss-salary-2023-4">previously told Insider</a> she decided to leave a job because her employer told her to come in five days a week."I just got to the point where it just wasn't working for me," she told Insider's Juliana Kaplan. "And I walked away from over a $100,000-per-year salary to seek positions that have hybrid options so that I can have that work-life balance."She's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/insurance-ceo-changes-remote-policy-employees-threaten-quit-unionize-report-2023-6">not the only one</a> prioritizing flexibility. Bonnie Chiurazzi, Glassdoor's director of market insights, noted to Insider results from a survey by the employer-review site where people "ranked the option to work remotely ahead of company culture, reiterating that flexibility is top of mind for many workers."According to November 2021 <a href="https://www.adpri.org/assets/people-at-work-2022-a-global-workforce-view/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">results</a> from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/return-to-office-great-resignation-gen-z-thinking-about-quitting-2022-4">ADP Research Institute</a>, 68% of respondents from almost 4,000 workers surveyed in North America said that they would think about looking for a job elsewhere if they had been told to return to the office every day.Chiurazzi told Insider in a statement that "employers mandating a return to the office risk losing top talent to competitors that are listening to their employees and leading with flexibility." Is it still safe to quit your job simply because you don't want to return to the office? Data points from different sources suggest yes.<h2>The job market is still strong and offers a higher share of remote job postings than pre-pandemic</h2>Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, shows the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-rate-labor-market-job-growth-may-jobs-report-2023-5">labor market</a> is still robust. While monthly US job openings had been coming down at the beginning of this year, April stopped this trend with an increase to 10.1 million openings. That's according to preliminary data for April from the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/jlt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey</a>, the most recent month available.While this job openings data isn't broken down by work model, job site Indeed recently looked at its job postings data, which shows companies are still posting about remote or hybrid positions. While Indeed found that the share of postings noting remote or hybrid work has generally been dropping, it is still higher than it was before the pandemic or even the same time two years ago.Indeed Hiring Lab's Daniel Culbertson wrote in a <a href="https://www.hiringlab.org/2023/06/28/us-remote-job-postings-still-seeing-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post</a> that this drop from the peak back in February 2022, "may not be a clear indication that employers have changed their minds on remote work, as the types of jobs where hiring has slowed the most are likely a factor." That would include software development jobs for instance, per Culbertson.Cory Stahle, an Indeed economist, noted at a press event last week that "remote work is something that is here to stay.""There are many advantages for employers and for employees as a part of that," Stahle added.But fully remote jobs may be difficult to land. According to Dawn Fay, an operational president for employment company Robert Half, it seems people and employers alike think hybrid is "a pretty good balance" of the different benefits of being in person and being remote. That includes "having the benefits and flexibility of those days where they don't have to commute, can be home, or can be elsewhere," according to Fay.Even Indeed renamed its Remote Job Tracker given the demand for hybrid employees, <a href="https://www.hiringlab.org/2023/06/28/us-remote-job-postings-still-seeing-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noting</a> as hybrid "work arrangements emerge as a primary modality of flexible work — which itself is a topic of growing interest to job seekers, employers and policymakers alike — we are updating and renaming the Remote Tracker to the Remote &amp; Hybrid Job Tracker."<h2>'The way people work isn't a one-size-fits-all solution'</h2>For employers with in-person policies worried about losing talent to remote work roles elsewhere, they should talk to workers or think about allowing multiple ways to get work done."The key here is for employers to understand that the way people work isn't a one-size-fits-all solution," Chiurazzi said. "Everyone works differently — some work better in the office and others work better at home. And for some employees, where they work best is non-negotiable."According to Fay, one reason employers may want workers to be working in person is because it can be helpful to train new employees. It may also be helpful to collaborate in person or "a speed factor that happens when people are together that sometimes does not happen when you're remote.""We're seeing that there's certainly different cycles of times that it makes more sense for people to maybe spend more time in an office and more time kind of remote," Fay said.Fay advised companies to have discussions about what's best for workers, the company, and their clients."I think as people really think through the whys behind things, I'm finding that companies, as well as their employees, are really getting themselves to strike that right balance and really strike the balance of productivity as well as flexibility," Fay said. "And that really in the end helps retention and productivity."Did you quit your job after being told to return to the office? Do you plan to never return to an in-person job? Reach out to this reporter at <a href="mailto:mhoff@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mhoff@insider.com</a>.

If you'd rather quit your job than return to the office, there are still plenty of remote opportunities out there

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Quiet quitting is getting louder as more unhappy workers are staying put.</li><li>Welcome to grumpy staying, in which workers begrudgingly skate by in a tightening job market.</li></ul>Workers are staying in their jobs, but some aren't happy about it.Over the last two years, they might have joined the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/great-resignation-what-to-know-who-is-quitting-2021-9">Great Resignation</a> or just <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-quitting-great-resignation-trends-economy-outlook-leaving-jobs-davos-2023-1">quiet quit.</a> But as the job market cools off, and more companies issue <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fight-return-to-office-mandates-remote-work-amazon-apple-2023-3">return-to-office mandates</a>, some employees may feel compelled to get louder about their dissatisfaction — while still keeping their job. Take Microsoft. An internal poll obtained by Insider's Ashley Stewart <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/internal-microsoft-poll-more-employees-would-take-competing-offers-2023-6">found that</a> less than half — 47% — of surveyed employees would stay with the firm if they got a comparable offer, down from 70% in November. Stewart reports that a Microsoft spokesperson disputed the exact numbers, but acknowledged that the positive response to that question has indeed fallen.Another poll at Salesforce, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-salesforce-survey-shows-how-57000-employees-feel-2023-6">also obtained by Stewart</a>, found that just 34% of respondents said the firm does a good job of retention, and 37% felt secure in their long-term futures there. One area that took a significant dip: Just 50% of respondents said there was a climate of trust.Gallup's 2023 State of the Global Workplace <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx#ite-506924" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>, which surveyed 122,416 workers across the world, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-loud-quitting-job-definition-2023-6">found</a> that 59% of employees are quiet quitting — and 18% are "loud quitting."Loud quitters are actively disengaged, per Gallup, and rather than putting in minimal work, they actually directly harm their firms. But that doesn't mean that those "loud quitting" are actually, you know, quitting. Welcome to "grumpy staying," where workers don't have the leverage to quit, and some aren't too pleased about staying. It shows how employers have, to some degree, flipped the switch on their workers and taken back some of the nascent power they accrued during the Great Resignation; <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wrong-great-resignation-recession-means-workers-powerless-despite-labor-shortage-2022-7">without structural changes</a>, those gains were short lived. <h2>Call them loud quitters or grumpy stayers: More people are keeping their jobs, but still want change</h2>Workers aren't <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quit-job-great-resignation-big-stay-changing-jobs-market-2023-5">switching jobs</a> at the breakneck pace they maintained through 2022.Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, <a href="https://www.adpri.org/mainstreet-macro-the-big-quit-is-over-here-comes-the-big-stay/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> in a recent analysis that the number of people quitting has plummeted in 2023. And the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that in April — the most recent month with data available — the quits rate continued its gradual decline, falling slightly to 2.4%.The slowdown comes after two years of workers enjoying the benefits of a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-labor-shortage-how-long-indeed-glassdoor-report-worker-power-2022-11">labor shortage</a>, allowing them to negotiate more pay and benefits from employers desperate to hire. Now that the shortage has eased, however, the fundamental structure of our economy — one that ties healthcare to employment, for example — hasn't changed, inflation remains high, and people need to work.Indeed's Wage Tracker <a href="https://www.hiringlab.org/2023/06/07/us-wage-growth-remains-solid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">indicates</a> that skyrocketing pay is slowing down, and just 43.5% of consumers say jobs are "plentiful," a marked decline in the <a href="https://www.conference-board.org/topics/consumer-confidence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Consumer Confidence Survey</a>. At the same time, job openings edged up a little, but are far from Great Resignation heights. Those openings are also dominated by blue-collar positions, further proving that blue-collar jobs <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-oulook-blue-collar-jobs-powering-economy-pay-stability-2023-5">are holding the economy down</a>.As wages <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wage-growth-faster-than-inflation-first-time-2-years-2023-6?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=business-sf&amp;utm_source=twitter">barely keep up</a> with inflation, and the prospect of a recession means some workers are fearing layoffs, many have no choice but to keep punching the clock — and grumble around the water cooler.Are you grumpy staying at your job? Contact this reporter at <a href="mailto:jkaplan@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jkaplan@insider.com</a>.

First there was quiet quitting. Now it's become grumpy staying.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker shows wage growth for job switchers has slowed.</li><li>"At least in the short term, wage growth for job switchers is far more likely to decline than increase," Indeed's Nick Bunker said.</li></ul>One of the big reasons people have been switching jobs during the Great Resignation is the allure of higher pay at a new gig.Now, that extra incentive might be less lucrative than it was just months ago.Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed Hiring Lab, <a href="https://twitter.com/nick_bunker/status/1590746004667699205">wrote on Twitter</a> based on the <a href="https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker">Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker</a> that "wage growth for job switchers seems to have peaked back in July. It's dropped almost a percentage point in 3 months.""At least in the short term, wage growth for job switchers is far more likely to decline than increase," Bunker told Insider in a statement.Based on three-month moving averages of year-over-year changes, wage growth was 8.5% in July for job switchers. It ticked down to 8.4% the following month before falling to 7.9% and 7.6% in September and October respectively. However, wage growth for job switchers was still above overall wage growth in October of 6.4%.A big reason people have quit their jobs during the Great Resignation has been because of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/">pay</a>. Although wage growth for people switching to new opportunities may have peaked, the monthly level of quits as reported by the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/jlt/">Bureau of Labor Statistics</a> is still high, although it has also slowed in recent months."The Great Resignation is not over yet," Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, told Insider in a statement. "Quits are high and the job market still leans towards workers, but with the risk of an impending recession, the market is certainly cooling off."Job switchers still have bargaining power, but "just not as much as they did a few months ago," Bunker said."Job switchers will likely see strong wage gains in the months ahead, but a waning Great Resignation means the gains won't be as large," Bunker said.The job market is also still strong as the US continues to add hundreds of thousands of jobs a month; the US added <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/october-jobs-report-payrolls-unemployment-rate-hiring-labor-market-2022-11">261,000 nonfarm payrolls</a> in October. There were <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/great-resignation-still-going-layoffs-low-job-openings-quits-high-2022-11">over 10 million job openings</a> in September as well as 6.1 million hires that month. With a tight yet cooling labor market, the fierce competition among employers for workers that job seekers and unemployed Americans have become used to during the pandemic <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/labor-market-quits-labor-force-participation-many-workers-wont-return-2022-11">may be changing</a>. "Demand for workers is fading and quits rates have been trending downward for most of this year," Bunker said. "In other words, there's less competition for workers. That means workers have less leverage and are unlikely to receive pay gains on par with what they got in late 2021."Although wage growth may have slowed from this summer for job switchers, it's still <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-trends-job-quitters-raises-double-labor-market-adp-august-2022-8">higher</a> than the growth of their peers who have stayed in their positions.But with talks of a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/next-growth-recession-outlook-2023-wont-feel-look-past-downturns-2022-11">recession</a> next year — although likely to be a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/next-growth-recession-2023-outlook-more-likely-shallow-and-manageable-2022-11">mild one</a> — current employees, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-quitters-coasters-target-for-layoffs-recession-experts-say-2022-10">"quiet quitters"</a>, and people resigning alike may be worried about what a downturn means for job security as well as bargaining power."In general, voluntary job switchers have more leverage than job stayers, but a recession hits all workers hard," Zhao said. "As the economy slows, job switchers will increasingly have to make the trade-off between higher pay for less job security."

The Great Resignation isn't paying off like it was this summer

<ul class="summary-list"><li>March's quit rate was 2.5%, less than the 2.9% a year prior; and monthly job openings are shrinking.</li><li>It may be accurate to say the quitting situation is evolving into the "Big Stay," per ADP's chief economist. </li></ul>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/great-resignation-what-to-know-who-is-quitting-2021-9">Great Resignation</a> is winding down, according to ADP's chief economist Nela Richardson.Many people were <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/workers-job-satisfaction-survey-c42addba">happy</a> to leave their <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/job-hopping-employees-hybrid-remote-workers-happiest-study-2023-5">jobs during the pandemic</a> to explore new ones. Some were looking for <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/">better pay</a>, while others were eager to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-people-quit-jobs-start-businesses-pandemic-2022-3">start a business</a>."The Big Quit of 2022 could be easing into the Big Stay of 2023," Richardson <a href="https://www.adpri.org/mainstreet-macro-the-big-quit-is-over-here-comes-the-big-stay/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in her recent commentary.Americans started job-hopping in earnest in 2021 and stayed strong through 2022. Between June 2021 and December 2022, over 4 million Americans quit each month.But the labor market has changed. The share of Americans quitting their jobs has broadly been declining, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The monthly job openings rate has also been sliding."The days of a quits rate near 3% are behind us, or at least for the foreseeable future," Nick Bunker, the head of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Insider.Richardson pointed out in her post that 2022 saw the largest job quits level on record at least since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking that data over two decades ago. While there's only three months of data available so far, quits in 2023 are much lower than they were in the first quarter of 2022. "The great resignation, as it came to be known, was fueled by abundant job opportunities, labor shortages, and big pay increases for workers who quit one job to take another," Richardson wrote. "A year later, all three of these dynamics are abating, and the great resignation itself is looking like a thing of the past."One reason could be that job-hopping isn't paying off like it used to, per <a href="https://payinsights.adp.com/?_ga=2.130813965.329182073.1683649538-2136153278.1683649538" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ADP Pay Insights data</a>. Richardson said the year-over-year percent increase in pay for job changers was "the lowest pace of growth since November 2021" in April.However, 12-month moving average data from the <a href="https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker</a> shows it seems to still be a good time to be a job switcher if you are looking to boost your pay, with less of a slowdown than the ADP data suggests. Job switchers see a median raise of 7.6%, compared to just 5.6% for workers who stay at the same job. That 12-month moving average of median growth has only cooled slightly from the 7.7% seen before that.<h2>Job-hopping is slowing down for remote workers but still strong for blue-collar work</h2>Other economists have also pointed out to Insider how the Great Resignation seemed to be over for certain kinds of jobs."If you read about the Great Resignation on your computer while working from home in your pajamas, it's been over for a couple of months now," Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor, told Insider. "If you heard about it while on the frontlines as an in-person service worker or a skilled vocational tradesperson, it's still very real." Terrazas doesn't think we are going to see the quits rate plummet as fast as it soared on the way up. However, he said "it wouldn't be surprising to see it dip below trend either."Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, noted the level of quits in the arts, entertainment, and recreation sector was higher in the first quarter of 2023 than the first quarter of 2022. However, quits tumbled by 23% in financial activities in this same period, she pointed out. Pollak said that "to the extent that there is a big stay, it is not taking place across the economy."The "Big Stay" that Richardson described could have different implications for employers, employees, and job seekers."As demand for workers continues to fade, employees will be less willing and able to leave their old jobs," Bunker said. "At the same time, the diminished demand will result in lower pay gains for workers switching their jobs. Employers will see this as a positive as they will have to worry less about retaining current employees."<h2>Workers may still want to switch jobs, but it's becoming less common</h2>To be sure, not everyone is staying put or will stick around in their job. People may resign if they feel like they're <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennial-quitting-job-low-pay-career-rut-no-growth-potential-2023-4">not making as much as they should be</a>. One person shared with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/remote-work-return-to-office-quit-job-micromanager-boss-salary-2023-4">Insider's Juliana Kaplan</a> how she gave notice after being required to return to the office full time.People may also be interested in getting a new job because they aren't happy. A <a href="https://www.conference-board.org/pdfdownload.cfm?masterProductID=46114">report from The Conference Board</a> highlighting its Consumer Confidence Survey from November stated that "overall job satisfaction is 3.6 percentage points higher among those who have found a new job since the pandemic began, compared to those who have not.""Most people will recognize that it's never a good time to stay in a bad role, and post-pandemic, there's a general sense that employees have less tolerance for unhealthy workplace cultures," Terrazas said. "We know that dissatisfied employees have wandering eyes, and it's all the easier for them to pursue those opportunities now as remote interviewing has become commonplace in many industries."Even if the Great Resignation might not be prevalent in all areas of the economy right now, it could emerge again."Employers who are not keenly attuned to the quickly shifting sands of the market, could unexpectedly find themselves reliving the Great Resignation the minute the market turns," Terrazas said.Pollak noted that while quits have fallen, the rate remains higher than before the pandemic. Given that, she suggested some alternate slogans for the current jobs market, such as "The Great Rebalancing" or "The Labor Market's Settling Down Period."Did you decide to stay in a job after thinking about quitting or have you quit your job? Reach out to this reporter at <a href="mailto:mhoff@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mhoff@insider.com</a>.

The Great Resignation is giving way to the 'Big Stay' as job-hopping slows down

<div type="image" title="FILE - In this June 23, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump arrives to speak to a group of young Republicans in Phoenix. The Republican president is hoping that a high-profile appearance at Mount Rushmore this Friday can help boost his standing. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)" height="1496" width="2992" msid="76756070" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>President Trump is in his weakest position yet heading into his reelection.</li><li>Unlike previous presidents in his position, he doesn't have the full four months until Election Day to turn around his chances. </li><li>Trump is trailing former VP Joe Biden not only nationally, but in key swing states he won in 2016 and some states that were previously expected to be safely in the GOP column, like Ohio and Georgia. </li><li>In most elections, the majority of voters vote in-person on election day.</li><li>But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a record number of voters are expected to vote by mail or early weeks before November 3.</li><li>Experts <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/america-likely-wont-know-presidential-race-winner-on-election-night-2020-5">have estimated to Insider</a> that anywhere in the range from 40% to 70% of voters are likely to cast ballots by mail this fall, in addition to those <keyword id="43546" type="EVENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Voting">voting</keyword> early in-person well before Election Day. </li></ul>President Donald Trump is in a dire position heading into his reelection <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/">as his disapproval ratings continue to climb</a> and voters hammer the president <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/coronavirus-polls/">over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.</a>Trump doesn't have long to turn around his fortunes. Because of the pandemic, more Americans than ever will send in their mail-in ballots and vote early weeks before Election Day, which means Trump has far less than the four months until November 3 to get his campaign on a winning trajectory. Last week, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/27/trump-losing-2020-election-342326">Politico reported</a> that Trump has privately acknowledged he is on a fast track to becoming one-term president.<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-campaign-scrambling-to-revive-the-presidents-imperiled-reelection-bid/2020/06/28/5cc9a300-b715-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html">The Washington Post reported</a> on Sunday that Trump's campaign is "grappling with how to resuscitate his imperiled reelection effort," including considering "a major staff shake-up" as the campaign's own internal polls even show Trump falling behind. Americans are used to casting their ballots in-person on the day of the election and getting the results relatively quickly. In the 2016 presidential general election, 23% of voters cast a mail-in or absentee ballot, 17% voted early in-person, and 59% voted in-person on election day, <a href="https://www.eac.gov/documents/2017/10/17/eavs-deep-dive-early-absentee-and-mail-voting-data-statutory-overview">according to the US Election Assistance Commission.</a> But this year, experts say, that dynamic will be flipped on its head. Due to the pandemic, a majority of voters are expected to cast their ballots by mail or vote early before November 3, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/america-likely-wont-know-presidential-race-winner-on-election-night-2020-5">the outcome taking longer to determine.</a>"What we think of as 'election day' is not much more than two months away," <a href="https://winwithjmc.com/">John Couvillon</a>, a Louisiana-based pollster, strategist, and election data analyst, told Insider, noting that states will start sending out mail-in ballots to voters beginning as early as September. <div type="image" title="FILE - In this May 27, 2020, file photo, a voter drops off their mail-in ballot prior to the primary election, in Willow Grove, Pa. The civic ritual of casting a ballot has been disrupted by a global pandemic and dramatically animated by social unrest. And If the results of a frustrating, chaotic primary in Georgia are a measure, the notion of democracy itself will also be on the ballot in the November election. Congress is now considering sending $3.6 billion to states to help facilitate safe and fair elections as part of another round of relief funds to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)" height="2524" width="5047" msid="76756074" hostid="261"></div><h2>This fall, Americans are expected to vote early or by mail in record numbers </h2>Before the pandemic, the majority of US states offered <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/early-voting-in-state-elections.aspx">early voting before election day</a>, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx#do%20not">no-excuse absentee voting</a>, or both.Given the volatility of the circumstances surrounding pandemic, it's difficult to predict the exact breakdown of how Americans will vote this year. But based <a href="https://www.voteathome.org/2020-visualization/">on the high rates of voters casting ballots by mail so far this cycle</a>, experts including Couvillon <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/america-likely-wont-know-presidential-race-winner-on-election-night-2020-5">have estimated to Insider</a> that anywhere in the range from 40% to 70% of voters are likely to cast ballots by mail, in addition to an expected increase in voters taking advantage of <a href="https://www.voteamerica.com/early-voting-calendar/">early voting.</a>Six states and certain counties in other states plan to send mail ballots to every registered voter. Twenty-eight states already allowed voters to cast a mail-in ballot without a documented excuse, and 12 states are allowing voters this year to cast mail ballots without an excuse for the primary, general election, or both. Some states, like <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michigan-vote-by-mail-registered-voters-absentee-ballot-applications/">Michigan,</a> <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/17/wisconsin-elections-commission-finalize-mailing-absentee-ballot-reqest-forms/5329007002/">Wisconsin</a>, and <a href="https://www.wfmj.com/story/42250802/all-registered-voters-in-ohio-to-receive-absentee-ballot-request-form">Ohio,</a> are planning on sending every registered voter an absentee ballot request form for the November election to incentivize mail voting. Others, like Georgia and Kentucky, are working to roll out online request portals. The <a href="https://www.voteathome.org/2020-visualization/">National Vote At Home Institute</a>, a non-partisan think tank that advocates for the expansion of secure mail-in voting options, found that 45% of voters have voted from home in the 2020 primary elections so far compared to 25% in the 2018 primaries.Many states are seeing very high and even record-shattering levels of voters casting ballots by mail in primaries held so far, including <a href="https://elections.wi.gov/node/6765">Wisconsin</a>, <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/georgia-voters-given-more-time-correct-absentee-ballot-problems/mE6LYLKpjOmAzniWAj8UnK/">Georgia</a>, <a href="https://dos.myflorida.com/media/703187/2020ppp-ev-archive.pdf">Florida</a>, <a href="https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/05/michigan-polls-quiet-as-absentee-voting-booms-to-record-levels-amid-coronavirus-outbreak.html">Michigan</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/pennsylvania-primary-election.html">Pennsylvania</a> — all of which are set to be decisive swing states in 2020. "Voters are indeed flocking to absentee and voting by mail in record numbers," Wendy Weiser, the Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/protect-democracy-expand-vote-mail">wrote on Tuesday</a>. "Health experts predict that the coronavirus will linger well into the fall, so there's every reason to expect a similar surge in requests for mail ballots ahead of the November election."The deadline to request an absentee ballot is between one to 15 days before election day in most states. But voters can already request their November mail-in ballots in 36 states and the District of Columbia, <a href="https://www.voteamerica.com/absentee-ballot-deadlines/">according to VoteAmerica</a>, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping voters navigate the process. In order to avoid overwhelming understaffed election offices with a last-minute rush of absentee ballot requests in mid-October, experts and election officials are encouraging voters to flatten the curve of absentee ballot requests, so to speak, by requesting and returning their mail ballot as soon as possible — preferably weeks in advance. "There are actual real-life humans on the other end who have to process these forms...and send things out, which is an elaborate process," Debra Cleaver, Vote America's founder, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/easy-things-you-can-do-to-make-november-election-a-success-2020-7">told Insider</a>. "The number-one thing Americans can do right now is to just sign up for vote-by-mail." As of 2019, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/early-voting-in-state-elections.aspx">39 states offered either in-person early voting</a> or early in-person absentee voting, where a voter fills out their absentee ballot at a polling place before election day. Some of the remaining states, like Kentucky, <a href="https://www.fox19.com/2020/06/22/amid-cries-voter-suppression-kentucky-could-be-track-record-primary-turnout/">are expanding no-excuse early voting</a> in response to the pandemic.In 32 of those states, early voting starts two weeks before election day or earlier, with eight of those states beginning to hold in-person early voting <a href="https://www.voteamerica.com/early-voting-calendar/">as far in advance as 40 to 45 days before Election Day.</a>While the proportion of Americans voting early or by mail is substantially increasing in the primaries, we don't know the exact timeline and trajectory of when Americans will cast their ballots this November, given the unprecedented nature of the pandemic.But even applying the most conservative estimates and assuming that the percentage of Americans casting ballots by mail or early in-person increases by only a factor of one-and-a-half times <a href="https://www.eac.gov/documents/2017/10/17/eavs-deep-dive-early-absentee-and-mail-voting-data-statutory-overview">over 2016 levels</a>, that would result in about 60% of the electorate filling out and casting their ballot before election day. If a substantial chunk of those voters vote or mail in their ballots well in advance before Election Day, as officials hope voters will do instead of waiting until the last minute, that would give Trump a matter of weeks, not months, to make his closing arguments in order to gain back the support he needs to have a fighting chance at reelection. <div type="image" title="FILE - In this June 20, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla. The coronavirus pandemic isn't going away anytime soon, but campaigns are still forging ahead with in-person organizing. The pandemic upended elections this year, forcing campaigns to shift their organizing activities almost entirely online and compelling both parties to reconfigure their conventions. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)" height="2518" width="5036" msid="76756080" hostid="261"></div><h2>Trump is in a time crunch to convince Americans why he deserves a second term</h2>Trump is <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">badly trailing former Vice President Joe Biden not only in national polls</a> by 9.5 percentage points on average, <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">according to FiveThirtyEight's tracker</a>, but in all the key battleground states he narrowly won in 2016. As FiveThirtyEight noted, Biden's polling lead is more substantial and consistent <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-bidens-polling-lead-is-different-from-clintons-in-2016/">than Hillary Clinton's lead over Trump in 2016. </a>Biden leads Trump by 9.1 points on average in <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/michigan/">Michigan</a>, 8.1 percentage points in both <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/wisconsin/">Wisconsin</a> and <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/pennsylvania/">Pennsylvania</a>, 7.2 percentage points in <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/florida/">Florida</a>, and 3.3 percentage points in both <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/arizona/">Arizona</a> and <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/north-carolina/">North Carolina.</a>In a <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000173-06fd-dd78-a9ff-77ff6cbc0000">national Politico/Morning Consult tracking poll</a> released Wednesday, voters preferred Biden over Trump to handle the coronavirus crisis, healthcare, protecting Medicare and Social Security, race relations, and uniting the country by double-digit margins, and preferred Trump and Biden about equally on handling the economy and bringing back jobs.More concerning, Biden is leading Trump in several states <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president">he easily won in 2016</a>, including <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/georgia/">Georgia</a>, which Trump won by 5.1 points in 2016 and <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/ohio/">Ohio</a>, which Trump won by 8 points, and is tied with Trump in <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/iowa/">Iowa.</a>These states, until the pandemic struck, were considered to be reliably in Trump's column. But the Trump campaign recently <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/06/trump-campaign-makes-hefty-18-million-fall-tv-ad-buy-in-ohio.html">placed an $18 million ad buy in Ohio</a> and reserved over $457,000 in TV ads in Georgia for the week of June 27-July 3, <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/06/trump-campaign-makes-hefty-18-million-fall-tv-ad-buy-in-ohio.html">according to Medium Buying.</a>"[Trump] is in a fairly deep hole," Couvillon, the pollster and strategist, told Insider. "When you see Trump spending money in states like Ohio and Georgia, that is a very defensive move. And there are far too many states where Biden is either ahead or is very competitive. That is something the Trump campaign has to be very concerned about — you don't really have much of an opportunity for expanding the map if you're a Republican, whereas Joe Biden has multiple paths."The president is also hemorrhaging support among the key demographic groups that powered his 2016 victory.Senior citizens aged 65 and older, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-s-lost-his-senior-advantage-could-cost-him-november-n1232467">who have been a core component of the Republican base for decades</a> and voted for Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls">by 12 points in 2016</a>, backed Biden by a margin of two points <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/politics/trump-biden-poll-nyt-upshot-siena-college.html">in a recent national New York Times/Siena College poll.</a>Independents, which Trump carried by four points in 2016, backed Biden by a margin of 21 points in The Times/Siena poll. White voters, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls">who backed Trump by a margin of 20 points in 2016</a>, supported the president by a margin of just one point. And women, who voted for Clinton by a margin of 13 points, backed Biden by 22 points. The Trump campaign, however, is banking on their years-long headstart in crucial swing states to give them an edge. "While Joe Biden's campaign just realized they should hire staff around the country, the Trump campaign and RNC have had a permanent presence in key states for years, where we are talking about the success of President Trump's America First policies," Trump campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager told Insider in a Wednesday statement.Zager also emphasized that "with early voting taking on a unique role this cycle, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/us/politics/trump-presidential-debates-2020.html">we've asked for more</a> – and earlier – debates with the Democrat candidate, especially as Biden hides in his basement to avoid accountability with voters."At a Tuesday news conference in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said he would readily agree to the standard three presidential debates, saying <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/505292-biden-can-hardly-wait-to-compare-his-cognitive-ability-with-trumps">he could "hardly wait"</a> to compare his cognitive capabilities to Trump on the debate stage. Biden's campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Insider. In order to have any chance at another term, Couvillon said, "Trump really does have to articulate a rationale for why he wants to be president for a second time."When Trump had the opportunity to do so in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, the president failed to clearly lay out a positive vision for a second term, saying, "I know everybody, I have great people in the administration" before digressing to criticize his former national security advisor John Bolton. "I never count an incumbent president out. But the stars aligned just-so in 2016," Couvillon added, referring to Trump winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president">thanks to razor-thin margins</a> in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, "and I'm seeing far too much Democratic enthusiasm thus far to see the stars align again that way."

Trump doesn't have until November 3 to turn around his faltering reelection campaign

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Dragan Radovanovic / Business InsiderBill Ackman and Carl Icahn are two of the most famous faces of modern hedge funds.</div></div></div>For the last eight years, hedge fund investors have been paying high fees for lackluster performance. There are rare exceptions - this <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-smiths-starboard-value-2016-performance-is-up-after-yahoo-stake-2016-8">New York fund is crushing competitors</a> - but for the most part, hedge fund managers have come up with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-funds-are-having-a-shocker-here-are-2016-8">layers of excuses</a> for why they are performing so poorly.It wasn't always this way.Decades ago, there were only a few funds, catering to rich people in the know, and those investors were happy to pay high fees in exchange for high returns.Now, it's a $3 trillion industry, and many of the investors are institutional pension funds. And, most importantly, what we call "hedge funds" has changed drastically. <h2>'Hedge' used to mean something</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Courtesy of A.W. Jones AdvisersAlfred Winslow Jones. The face of the first hedge fund.</div></div></div>In the late 1940s, a journalist and sociologist named Alfred Winslow Jones had an idea. He decided to buy stocks using borrowed money to magnify his profits. He also bet against stocks, profiting if they lost value.Jones "shorted" stocks, meaning he bet they'd go down.He called this strategy "hedging" - and it was in 1949 that he turned this idea into an investment firm and what is thought to be the first hedge fund.(Jones actually called it a "hedged fund.")Jones' fund made mega money for his clients, usually rich families, and he became a legend on Wall Street. His firm gained 670% in the preceding 10 years, compared with a 358% gain for the leading mutual fund of that time, according to a <a href="http://www.awjones.com/images/Fortune_-_The_Jones_Nobody_Keeps_Up_With.pdf">1966</a> Fortune article by legendary financial journalist Carol Loomis.The firm still exists and is now run by Jones' grandson, Robert Burch IV.Even as late as 1966, journalists like Loomis were putting the term "hedge fund" in quotes. The idea was still novel. These days, the term has lost its quotes and also a lot of its meaning. In fact, some hedge funds don't hedge at all. <h2>OK, so what's a hedge fund today? </h2>It can be a lot of things. There are hedge funds that act like mutual funds. There are hedge funds that invest in only the arcane or the bizarre - like lawsuit funding or the right to develop the space above a building. Some bet on trends in the world economy. Others employ math geniuses with Ph.D.s to program computers to trade for them. A hedge fund can be a guy in his basement or thousands of people in a headquarters in Connecticut. So, what do hedge funds have in common? Not much other than that they're really expensive. "Hedge funds are a fee structure - it's really the only defining factor," said Joe Marenda, a hedge fund consultant at Cambridge Associates.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Dragan Radovanovic / Business Insider</div></div></div>Traditionally, hedge funds collect 2% of their clients' assets. So if a rich person or a pension fund puts $100,000 in a hedge fund, then the fund collects $2,000 before it even does anything. This means <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a83addb2-2cb9-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc.html#axzz4BOl8dFOK">huge hedge funds, even if they don't perform particularly well, can generate a hefty dose of income on the management fee alone</a>, making the hedge fund business potentially very lucrative.With that $100,000, the fund would then invest the remaining $98,000. If its value goes up, then the hedge fund gets to collect a lot more money: 20% of the original investment's gains. So, if it's worth $110,000 in a year, then the hedge fund keeps another $2,000. But most hedge funds can't command that fee structure anymore. Investors have been asking for lower fees as performance has slumped and thousands of new hedge funds have entered the market. A closer estimate of what the average hedge fund gets paid is a 1.6% management fee and a 19.4% performance fee, according to Preqin, a data tracker. A startup hedge fund will most likely charge fees lower than that, managers say.But compared with boring index funds - some charging fees as low as 0.05% - hedge funds are a lucrative business. <h2>How do they do?</h2>You'd think that if hedge funds are charging so much, then they ought to be performing far better than the stock market as a whole. Sometimes they do, but overall, hedge fund returns have been rather lousy in recent years. This has led to frustration and anxiety among investors. So, hedge funds have started to market their purpose differently - highlighting that they may lose less money when markets tumble, rather than consistently outperform indexes like the S&amp;P 500. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Andy Kiersz / Business InsiderDespite their high fees, hedge funds often perform no better than the S&amp;P 500 Index.</div></div></div>Many funds said that they could make money in good markets and bad, and indeed, some hedge funds profited even as markets tanked in the latest financial crisis. But performance since then has been lackluster, and even those that had performed well in the past have wavered.Many investors <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-why-hedge-funds-are-underperforming-so-badly-barclays-2016-8">worry that the bigger hedge funds are getting too big</a>, chasing the same strategies and crowding one another out. This, to some extent, may have caused underperformance among the biggest hedge funds recently, according to a Barclays report.Macro conditions - what's happening in the world economy - have become the common excuse of late. One notable hedge fund startup, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tourbillons-jason-karp-talks-markets-in-second-quarter-letter-2016-8">Tourbillon Capital</a>, named low interest rates, for instance, as one reason that its performance has dropped double digits this year.And there are worries that hedge funds may not perform the way they used to. Since 2008, investors would have been better off in the boring old S&amp;P 500 than the average hedge fund. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Andy Kiersz / Business InsiderHedge funds can be incredibly volatile investments. These are Pershing Square's returns after the 20% performance fee.</div></div></div><h2>Transparency issues</h2>To many, hedge funds are mysterious and secretive. Some don't even have websites, and when they do, it's often a <a href="https://www.rentec.com/Home.action?index=true">spartan</a> home page. Until the financial crisis - and the Dodd-Frank Act - funds didn't even have to register with the government. Even with registration, hedge funds usually disclose little about how they make their money, other than a general strategy summary in their public filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. For more detailed info, you have to ask the manager directly, which usually means that you have to be an investor.But even then, the manager may not tell you. Hedge funds can be black boxes, offering only vague disclosures of how they invest their clients' cash. They might tell you that they put money into private companies but not how they value those investments. Or they may shift money around rapidly, giving investors no way to keep track of where their money is.Hedge funds, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/valueacts-due-diligence-questionnaire-sheds-light-on-morgan-stanley-strategy-2016-8">like this one</a>, will often say that they shouldn't even be compared to a benchmark index because their strategy is so distinctive. That same fund also requires <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/valueacts-due-diligence-questionnaire-sheds-light-on-morgan-stanley-strategy-2016-8">investors to sign a confidentiality agreement</a> to be able to see the full portfolio.In addition, most hedge funds lock investors' money up for a period of time - usually a quarter of a year - but it could be up to several years. So if you don't like the way things are going, then you can't pull your money out all at once. <h2>How do you invest? </h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Dragan Radovanovic / Business InsiderA hedge fund could be one guy in his basement...</div></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Dragan Radovanovic / Business Insider...or a big company with thousands of employees.</div></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Dragan Radovanovic / Business InsiderIts investment decisions could be made by people...</div></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Dragan Radovanovic / Business Insider...or made by sophisticated computers.</div></div></div>If, after all that, with the expensive fees and mysterious strategies, you still want to invest in a hedge fund, then you probably can't - unless you're really rich. These are the rules on how rich you have to be before you can invest in a hedge fund, according to the <a href="https://www.investor.gov/news-alerts/investor-bulletins/investor-bulletin-accredited-investors">SEC</a>:<ul><li style="font-weight: 400;">either you've earned more than $200,000 - or $300,000 together with a spouse - in each of the prior two years and reasonably expect the same for the current year, or</li><li style="font-weight: 400;">you have a net worth of over $1 million, either alone or together with a spouse, excluding the value of your home</li></ul>That's for individuals. But increasingly, it's big institutional investors piling into hedge funds: public pensions, college endowments, and foundations representing many middle-class Americans.This has meant that hedge funds have also become more institutional in nature, hiring bigger compliance staffs and investor-relations teams to manage a broader investor base.Some institutional investors are getting cold feet about hedge funds, seeing their high fees and paltry returns as not worth the risk and effort. The New York City Employee Retirement System, the city's pension for civil employees, and other big pensions decided to eliminate or reduce their hedge fund investments recently.<h2>All hedge fund managers are rich, right?</h2>Not necessarily.It's no secret that hedge fund managers have become some of the world's richest people. They include billionaires George Soros, Steve Cohen, Paul Singer, Alan Howard, and Ray Dalio. Many of them make big political donations, on the left and the right, and manage money for some of the biggest pots of public money: public pensions.But it's also inaccurate to say that every hedge fund manager makes bank.Some estimates put the number of hedge funds at about 11,000 today. Most of them are small funds with a handful of people working there. The business isn't lucrative unless you can raise a lot of money from outside investors on top of performing well. Many don't.On the other end is a firm like Bridgewater. With $150 billion in assets, it's the world's biggest hedge fund firm by far. The Westport, Connecticut-based Bridgewater employs about 1,700 people. Its founder, Dalio, took home $1.4 billion last year, making him only the third-highest-earning hedge fund manager for 2015, according to <a href="http://www.institutionalinvestorsalpha.com/Article/3552805/The-2016-Rich-List-of-the-Worlds-Top-Earning-Hedge-Fund-Managers.html">Institutional Investor's Alpha</a>.James Simons, of the secretive computer-driven Renaissance Technologies, and Ken Griffin, of the Chicago-based Citadel, tied for first, with $1.7 billion.<h2>What else should I know?</h2>Some hedge funds are run by "activist" investors. They try to change companies from within to boost their stocks' value. Bill Ackman, who runs Pershing Square Capital, has tried to change and influence companies like McDonald's and Herbalife.Others, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cevian-capital-biggest-activist-hedge-fund-in-europe-2016-6">such as Cevian Capital in the UK</a>, work more behind the scenes. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-fund-manager-anthony-scaramucci-trump-ready-rnc-2016-7">Hedge fund manager explains why America does not need to be uneasy about a Trump presidency</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="xtcXN1NDE6fXeDn2YJOTOBgHx3sAMrRM" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

'Hedge fund' doesn't mean anything anymore - that's why they've been such a disappointment

<div class="image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="The Economist" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/52d97814ecad045a04769270-960/20140118_srd005_2.jpg"></a><keyword id="425741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-Economist">The Economist</keyword></div></div> OH NO, NOT another accelerator, you may think. But this one is different. On the tables are not just the obligatory laptops and smartphones but circuit boards, cables, screwdrivers and a few items which look only vaguely familiar. One resembles a very old mobile phone with an oddly shaped knob attached to it. Another, a set of small blocks with switches and buttons, calls to mind a disassembled mixer in a recording studio. Yet another might be the microphone of a computer headset, but is mounted on a pair of glasses.
Even more surprisingly, the home of <a href="http://haxlr8r.com/" target="_blank">Haxlr8r</a> (pronounced "Hackcelerator") is not some co-working space in London or San Francisco but the 10th floor of an office building in Shenzhen. The city in the Pearl River Delta, close to Hong Kong, is the world capital of electronics: most of the planet's digital devices are assembled in factories in and around the city.
Haxlr8r is living proof that, as Karl Popper once said, history repeats itself, but never in the same way. Just as with software services, new technology makes it ever easier to build new types of devices, most of them connected to the internet. The difference is that making hardware remains, well, hard-which is why Haxlr8r is in Shenzhen. That way its teams may avoid the fate of a first generation of hardware startups, mostly based in America. They put their ideas up on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the leading crowdfunding services, but then endured months of delay or never got as far as manufacturing their devices.
The technologies that allowed software services to be developed more cheaply and quickly were cloud computing, social networks and any number of digital services called application programming interfaces (APIs). For hardware the list includes all of the above plus 3D printers, sensors and microcontrollers which bridge the analogue and the digital worlds. The platform for most connected devices is smartphones. All these elements can be combined in countless ways, creating a Cambrian explosion not just in software but in physical electronic devices too.
When the latest batch of founders arrived at Haxlr8r in August, new wireless chips based on a standard called Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) had just become widely available. These are cheaper and less power-hungry than the previous generation, and startups do not have to ask Apple for permission to use them to tether their devices to the iPhone (and pay for it). Most teams at Haxlr8r went on to use BLE chips in their contraptions.
The old mobile phone with the knob is actually a wireless tuning device called <a href="http://roadietuner.com/" target="_blank">Roadie</a>-and an example of how technology, personal interest and culture can come together in surprising ways. Bassam Jalgha and Hassane Slaibi are the founders of Beirut's first hackerspace, a clubhouse for tinkerers. But they are also musicians and know how difficult it is to tune a lute, a popular instrument in Lebanon. So when they came to Shenzhen, they set out to build something that makes it easy to tune string instruments. A smartphone app listens to the sound and tells the motor in the tuning device whether to tighten or loosen a string.
The blocks, called <a href="http://www.palettegear.com/" target="_blank">Palette</a>, are indeed the components for a mixer of sorts and are meant to be assembled by designers and photographers who need a physical interface for repetitive tasks on a computer. The microphone, dubbed <a href="http://wearvigo.com/" target="_blank">Vigo</a>, is a "drowsiness meter": the tip contains a sensor that measures how often a user blinks-a sign of how tired he is, and whether he should stop driving or get a cup of coffee.
Yet most of the value of such devices is not so much in the design but in the software and services that are part of the package. Roadie comes with a smartphone app, Palette, with a program that runs on a PC. Vigo will show the user on a website how his attention fluctuates over time. Such offerings not only make products harder to copy but might allow their makers to earn additional money from subscriptions.
Makers and shakers
When Cyril Ebersweiler and Sean O'Sullivan, two venture capitalists, set up Haxlr8r in September 2011, they chose Shenzhen for a good reason. The district of Futian, the accelerator's home, has dozens of shopping malls for electronics. The biggest is the Seg market. The bottom floor is reserved for screws, cables and chips, and as you go higher up the products become more finished: circuit boards, networking equipment, personal computers. The sixth floor offers LEDs in all shapes and sizes, from super-thin Christmas garlands to super-bright lamps.
Shenzhen is also packed with all kinds of suppliers and service providers that can make life easier for hardware startups. Having a new circuit board made there takes days, not weeks as it does in America, reports Eszter Ozsvald of <a href="http://www.notchdevice.com/" target="_blank">Notch</a>, another Haxlr8r startup. Her company is developing small motion trackers. And had <a href="http://wearpoint.com/" target="_blank">Wearpoint</a> not gone to <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>, it would probably never have found the track pad it needs for its remote control for Google Glass, a head-mounted display.
Being in Shenzhen also allows founders to look at lots of factories, which proved handy for<a href="http://%20www.everpurse.com/" target="_blank">Everpurse</a>, a company that sells fancy handbags with a built-in smartphone charger. "If the workers are not happy, they may leak your intellectual property," says Dan Salcedo, the firm's co-founder.
If a factory passes muster, other Haxlr8r startups often go on to use it too. Howard Hunt, the boss of <a href="http://www.thedustcloud.com/" target="_blank">DustCloud</a>, had scouted out a factory to make casings for prototypes of his Dusters, gun-shaped devices for playing open-air laser tag. When he went to pick them up and pay (cash) in early October, the founders of Notch and Wearpoint came along to see whether the factory could also work for them. The meeting showed that people from different cultural backgrounds can communicate perfectly well with a minimum of translation. Each time the Western founders asked a question, the Chinese owner of the factory fetched another plastic sample that met with approval.
Silvia Lindtner of the University of California, Irvine, and Fudan University in Shanghai, who follows the startup scene in China, is not surprised. The two sides complement each other, she says. The founders of hardware startups, often steeped in the open-source culture, partner with factories rooted in the Chinese culture of shanzhai, which translates as "mountain stronghold". It used to mean pirated electronic goods but now stands for open-source manufacturing.
Haxlr8r is not the only model for plugging into Shenzhen's extraordinary manufacturing platform. Another is <a href="http://www.seeedstudio.com/" target="_blank">Seeed Studio</a>, a contract manufacturer for makers, as the world's ever-growing crowd of tinkerers is called. "Haxlr8r is for backpackers who want to do things themselves," explains Eric Pan, who founded Seeed in 2008. "We on the other hand offer guided tours. And you don't even have to come here."
Having worked for about 200 makers last year, Seeed is now one of the world's biggest manufacturers of open-source hardware. When a maker asks Seeed to build a circuit board, the firm keeps a copy of the design which can then be used without charge by other customers. Most factories in Shenzhen work for big customers and have long assembly lines where workers perform only one task. But makers typically want just a few items and are willing to pay more, so Mr Pan has split his employees into self-organizing teams.
Whereas Seeed is a Chinese creation,<a href="http://www.pchintl.com/" target="_blank">PCH International</a> is a Western take on Shenzhen. Also based in the city, it started out as a sourcing company with a reputation for being the fastest supplier of parts to electronics makers. Liam Casey, who founded the company in 1996, had criss-crossed the Pearl River Delta, gathering knowledge about supply lines. PCH later added packaging, logistics and manufacturing to its portfolio. Today the firm, which had revenues of $1 billion in 2013, is an "end-to-end platform, a sort of Amazon Web Services for electronics manufacturing", in the words of Mr Casey. He has even started an accelerator, Highway1, which is based in San Francisco, to generate more things to make for his platform.
Some firms prefer to go it alone, like <a href="http://www.zoundindustries.com/" target="_blank">Zound Industries</a>, a Swedish maker of fashionable headphones, including brands such as Urbanears and Molami. Back in 2008, when production in Shenzhen did not get off the ground because factories failed to deliver, Zound sent one of the founders, who hired a couple of experienced hands to work with manufacturers. Today the firm has 18 employees in the Chinese city and uses five factories which have so far produced nearly 8m headphones.
For the moment Haxlr8r's latest batch of startups can only dream of such success. In November they had their demo day, held in San Francisco and marking the beginning of their "Kickstarter" campaigns, which essentially consist of a video presenting the project and asking for money. Investors can be surprisingly generous, even for rather odd projects.<a href="http://www.petcube.net/" target="_blank">Petcube</a> managed to raise more than $250,000 for a small, internet-connected metal box with a video camera, microphone and laser pointer inside that lets owners watch their pets from afar and play with them by controlling the laser pointer.
The Kickstarter campaign is only the beginning of a long journey. Founders must get their products certified, find distributors, organize production and avoid getting sued for infringing other people's intellectual property. "Hardware is really hard," says Amanda Williams, whose company,<a href="http://www.fabule.com/" target="_blank">Fabule</a>, was part of Haxlr8r's previous batch. She is back in Shenzhen dealing with manufacturers of the firm's first product, a programmable lamp.
Some of the contraptions may seem a shade frivolous, but Haxlr8r's startups also included<a href="http://www.babybe.org/" target="_blank">Babybe</a>, an "emotional prosthetic" designed to help prematurely born babies to catch up. It transmits the mother's heartbeat, breathing pattern and even her voice to a mattress in the infant's incubator.
With startups you never know what you will get. But the platforms, the accelerators and the ecosystems that allow them to develop are already emerging in other industries, too.

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