ROADMAP AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The State should invest in policies, platforms, and programs that respond to both the challenges that technology imposes on workers and the workplace, and the positive opportunities technology creates.

INVESTING IN WORKERS: Support lifelong learning and skill building to make workers resilient to the changes technology will bring.

• Create Lifelong Learning Accounts for all New Jerseyans and fund the accounts of low-wage workers, and encourage and provide mechanisms for employers to match funds for lifelong learning.
• Further develop the State’s Training Explorer to help workers make informed decisions about lifelong learning and training.
• Encourage all employers to invest in worker training, lifelong learning, and reemployment and create financial incentives for small and medium-sized employers.
• Support innovation and skills collaboratives and other ongoing initiatives to align New Jersey’s education and workforce systems, and align individuals’ education with their desired career pathways.
• Continue to expand low-cost opportunities to access degree programs (including access to community colleges), career and technical education, and training, apprenticeships, and pre-apprenticeships.

EMPOWERING WORKERS: Innovate to safeguard, enforce, and deliver worker rights and benefits.

• Fund and create better enforcement mechanisms to ensure employer compliance with workers rights and benefits laws.
• Integrate strategic enforcement mechanisms to proactively pursue violations using predictive analytics and publicize violations to serve as a deterrent.
• Strengthen enforcement of the State’s existing laws on misclassification of workers.
• Explore the creation of a Portable Benefits System to provide more benefits to nontraditional workers.
• Launch an employer education initiative on the risks of algorithmic hiring tools to prevent discrimination and promote diversity in hiring, and explore the potential need to develop policy that would prohibit the use of discriminatory technology in hiring.
• Fix and modernize the NJDOL Unemployment Insurance website.
• Create new platforms to make it easier for workers to obtain the benefits to which they are entitled.
• Advance development of the New Jersey Career Network, a virtual coaching program to help workers know their rights, develop new skills, and get back to work faster.
• Develop integrated and transparent data systems across agencies to promote better understanding of the labor market.
• Make it easier for businesses to start, maintain, and grow, and hire workers through the creation of a “Business One Stop” website.
• Promote and protect workers' right to organize.

PROTECTING WORKERS: Use new technology to protect worker health and safety

• Launch the Future of Work Accelerator to spur the creation of more innovative tools for safer work.
• Empower NJDOL to become a 21st-century regulator with better access to data and tools so the agency can better enforce worker safety laws.
• Invest in entrepreneurial businesses and nonprofits that promote worker safety.
• Train public servants to use human-centered design practices so that the government develops worker policies and solutions with the input of workers.