This week in HR: Jodie Foster on younger workers and a ‘bad year to be a techie’

As the dust settles on the new year, expect turbulence in the way we work. From Jodie Foster joining the intergenerational work conversation to IT job market challenges, there’s been no shortage of headlines in HR this past week.

Jodie Foster says younger workers need to ‘learn how to relax’

Age was a central theme in Jodie Foster’s recent interview with The Guardian. Asked what she thinks young people in her industry need to hear, Ms Foster answered: “They need to learn how to relax, how to not think about it so much, how to come up with something that’s theirs.”

“They’re really annoying, especially in the workplace,” she added. “They’re like: ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10:30am.’ Or in emails, I’ll tell them: this is all grammatically incorrect, did you not check your spelling? And they’re like: ‘Why would I do that, isn’t that kind of limiting?’”

Had the actress left her thoughts there, you might take it as a pointless blow to industry up-and-comers. To be clear, the comment is harsh and certainly a generalisation, but the blow was chased with an invitation to help, to connect with older, more experienced colleagues. She added: “I can help them find [something that’s theirs], which is so much more fun than being, with all the pressure behind it, the protagonist of the story.”

“I do a lot of reaching out to young actresses. I’m compelled. Because it was hard growing up,” said Ms Foster.

Navigating middle age, Ms Foster said she looked to friends, both older and younger, for advice. One friend, an older college professor, told the actress to focus on helping communities of women: “For all of her accomplishments,” it was this that the friend was most proud of.

For the first time in history, it’s not uncommon to find members of five generations in a single office or workplace. Acknowledging differences and facilitating dialogue between workers of all ages is surely part of the solution.

Only 700 new IT jobs in US created last year: ‘Bad year to be a techie’

According to an analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Janco Associates, the US tech industry gained a total of only 700 new jobs across 2023. Compared to a net growth of 267,000 the year prior, this is certainly a slow trickle.

The news might be unsurprising for those who have kept up to date with the wave after wave of tech redundancies in the country, from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to Yahoo, Zoom, and Meta. Perhaps more concerning, the slowdown in terminations enjoyed in the latter half of 2023 appears to be reversing.

Though the redundancies certainly played a role, said Janco, there’s more to the story. For instance, artificial intelligence (AI) has wreaked havoc on the IT job market, introducing a “new paradigm where a lot of tech talent is going to have to retrain because AI is being crammed wherever C-level employees can stick it,” explained Janco chief executive M Victor Janulaitis.

Further, the analysis found that there are nearly 100,000 unfilled jobs in the sector, with over 101,000 unemployed IT professionals in the country.

“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are poor at best,” he added.

While US tech is certainly its own beast, similar fears have been echoed in Australia. Redundancies abounded in early 2023, calling into question the likelihood of meeting the federal government’s aim of adding 1.2 million tech jobs by 2030.