Daily Archives: July 5, 2020

Around the world, 2020 has emerged as one of the most challenging years in many of our lifetimes. In six months, the world has endured multiple challenges, including a pandemic that has spurred a global economic crisis. As societies reopen, its apparent that the economy in July will not be what it was in January. Increasingly, one of the key steps needed to foster a safe and successful economic recovery is expanded access to the digital skills needed to fill new jobs. And one of the keys to a genuinely inclusive recovery are programs to provide easier access to digital skills for people hardest hit by job losses, including those with lower incomes, women, and underrepresented minorities.

To help address this need, today Microsoft is launching a global skills initiative aimed at bringing more digital skills to 25 million people worldwide by the end of the year. This initiative will bring together every part of our company, combining existing and new resources from LinkedIn, GitHub, and Microsoft. It will be grounded in three areas of activity:

(1) The use of data to identify in-demand jobs and the skills needed to fill them;

(2) Free access to learning paths and content to help people develop the skills these positions require;

(3) Low-cost certifications and free job-seeking tools to help people who develop these skills pursue new jobs.

At its heart, this is a comprehensive technology initiative that will build on data and digital technology. It starts with data on jobs and skills from the LinkedIn Economic Graph. It provides free access to content in LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and the GitHub Learning Lab, and couples these with Microsoft Certifications and LinkedIn job seeking tools. In addition, Microsoft is backing the effort with $20 million in cash grants to help nonprofit organizations worldwide assist the people who need it most. One-quarter of this total, or $5 million, will be provided in cash grants to community-based nonprofit organizations that are led by and serve communities of color in the United States.

Our vision for skills extends beyond these immediate steps for job seekers. Employees will also need to skill and reskill through their careers, and we want to make it easier for employers to help. Our vision is a connected system of learning that helps empower everyone to pursue lifelong learning. That is why we are also announcing today that Microsoft is developing a new learning app in Microsoft Teams to help employers upskill new and existing employees. This will bring together best in class content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, third-party training providers, and a companys own learning content and make it all available in a place where employees can easily learn in the flow of their work.

We are also pledging that we will make stronger data and analytics available to governments around the world so they can better assess local economic needs. Finally, we will use our voice to advocate for public policy innovations that we believe will advance the skilling opportunities people will need in the changed economy.

While this represents the largest skills initiative in Microsofts history, we recognize that no company can come close to closing the skills gap alone. Sustained progress will require a renewed partnership between stakeholders across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and were committed to supporting this. Following is a complete description of our thinking and plans.

The problem we need to solve

Within only a few months, COVID-19 has provoked a massive demand shock, setting off job losses that far exceed the scale of the Great Recession a decade ago. The world will need a broad economic recovery that will require in part the development of new skills among a substantial part of the global workforce.

According to Microsoft calculations, global unemployment in 2020 may reach a quarter of a billion people. It is a staggering number. The pandemic respects no border. In the United States alone, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the country may witness a 12.3 point increase (from 3.5% to 15.8%) in the unemployment rate, equating to more than 21 million newly out-of-work people. Many other countries and continents face similar challenges.

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As is often the case, the biggest brunt of this downturn is being borne by those with lower educational attainment, people with disabilities, people of color, women, younger workers, and individuals who have less formal education. The impact on communities of color in the United States is especially concerning. Just last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed that the country ended the month of May with unemployment rates in the Black/African-American and Hispanic/Latino communities that were markedly higher than for white individuals.

The employment of American women has also been impacted disproportionally by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment rates among women, which has hovered with or edged below mens unemployment rates, soared to more than 16%, almost 3 percentage points higher at the April peak.

The challenges ahead reach beyond the immediate pandemic. Crises have a way of accelerating trends already in motion, and the COVID-19 pandemic has proven no exception. Our data shows that two years worth of digital transformation have been concentrated into the past two months. By one account, the final weeks of March alone witnessed as much broadband traffic growth as would be expected in a full year.

The pandemic has shined a harsh light on what was already a widening skills gap around the world a gap that will need to be closed with even greater urgency to accelerate economic recovery. This longer-term disconnect between supply and demand for skills in the labor market appears to be driven by three primary long-term factors: (1) the rapid emergence of AI-powered technologies that are propelling a new era of automation; (2) the growing need for technological acumen to compete in a changing commercial landscape; and (3) the drop-off in employer-based training investments over the past two decades. Navigating these challenges to close the skills gap will require a renewed partnership between stakeholders across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

As we look to the future, we can draw insights from recessions in the past. Although recent recessions differed in their causes, each followed a trend of shedding low-skilled jobs and gradually replacing them with less automatable roles. In the late 1960s, roles that involved repetitive tasks involving manual work made up 34% of all jobs. These have been easier to automate, and as a result these jobs have now shrunk to 26% of all jobs. By contrast, jobs involving heavy cognition and problem-solving have simultaneously risen from 22% to 34%.

This pattern is poised to repeat itself, with an added emphasis on a jobs recovery that requires an increasing focus on digital skills. There are two reasons this appears likely.

First, in the shorter-term COVID-19 will continue to lead to unprecedented reliance on digital skills. In many situations, some workers may spend several months or longer in a hybrid economy, where some will be in the workplace while others continue to work from home. The shorter-term hybrid economy is a more digital economy. With continued consumer and employee reliance on almost remote everything, we can expect digitization of the economy to continue to advance at an accelerated speed. And as companies respond to a recession by increasing efficiency, this need for digital transformation will increase even further.

Second, the economic recovery will take place amid the longer-term and already-unfolding wave of automation based on the new technologies that underpin what some have called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Over the next five years, we estimate that the global workforce can absorb around 149 million new technology-oriented jobs. Software development accounts for the largest single share of this forecast, but roles in related fields like data analysis, cyber security, and privacy protection are also poised to grow substantially.

Of course, the magnitude and mixture of job growth will vary by country, industry, and sector. Although the impact will not be distributed evenly, digital transformation will touch virtually every corner of the global workforce from food production (324,000 new jobs) to healthcare (2 million) and the automotive industry (6 million).

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All this is made more urgent because of a challenge that has been two decades in the making, namely the decline and then stagnation in employer investments in training. Employer investments in training grew substantially throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as personal computers and the internet reshaped the worlds workplaces. This trend ceased around the turn of the century, as the dot-com recession and 9/11 marked the start of a nearly decade-long decline in employer-based investment in training.

Since 2008, the downward trend in employer-paid training has given way to a decade of stagnation, both in North America and around the world notwithstanding a small spike in the wake of the Great Recession. Alarmingly, the trend of the past few years appears to be slightly negative. This contraction occurred despite the fact that the U.S. economy, which accounts for just under half of the global training market, was enjoying an unprecedented period of growth, and technological advances were beginning to reshape the modern workplace yet again.

Exacerbating the challenge is the fact that existing training is not reaching the populations who need it most. On-the-job training far outpaces distance learning and other alternative modes, limiting options for prospective employees. Perhaps more significantly, on-the-job training is more than two times as prevalent among workers who are already in higher-skilled roles, leaving those in more automatable positions even more vulnerable to displacement.

Digital technologies will be key to narrowing the divide, not only because they can expand the reach and accessibility of training, but because proficiency in these tools is in top demand. In a recent survey of American workers by Pew Research Center, for instance, 85% of respondents cited digital skills as either extremely important or very important to succeeding in todays workplace.

But technology is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. The same Pew survey also observed that 85% of respondents regarded soft skills like collaborating with others and communicating effectively as highly important. In other words, people-oriented success skills remain as essential as ever perhaps even more so given their durability at a time when technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed. Although technology companies have an important role to play in helping close the skills gap, success will take a concerted effort among employers, nonprofits, governments, and other stakeholders. The task calls for renewed partnerships and redoubled investments in skills, ensuring that training reaches the broadest group of people with the greatest needs.

A principled approach

As we have with our work to protect privacy, security, and environmental sustainability, weve concluded that the global skills challenge calls for a principled response. As a company, well base our efforts on six key elements:

What we are launching today

Todays global skills initiative is based on months of planning across Microsoft to provide meaningful help to 25 million people globally by the end of 2020. Our activities will be focused on three areas:

Several years ago, LinkedIn operationalized the worlds first Economic Graph to track workforce trends and provide a window into emerging skills gaps. The Economic Graph is a digital representation of the global economy based on more than 690 million professionals, 50 million companies, 11 million job listings, 36,000 defined skills, and 90,000 schools. In short, it is all the data on LinkedIn and shows available jobs, their required skills, and the existing skills job seekers have.

The Economic Graph also makes it possible to spot in-demand skills, emerging jobs, and global hiring rates. These insights help connect LinkedIn members to better opportunities and assist governments and organizations as they create economic opportunity for the global workforce.

As part of this new initiative, LinkedIn is sharing free, real-time labor market data and skills insights to help governments, policymakers and business leaders understand whats happening in their local labor markets: what companies are hiring, the top jobs companies are hiring for and the trending skills for those jobs. This data can be accessed using a new interactive tool at linkedin.com/workforce. Data is available for more than 180 countries and regions (150+ cities, 30+ countries). Users can search by country or region and download the data sets.

We have also used the Economic Graph as a critical planning resource for todays skills initiative, by identifying the key jobs and horizontal skills that are most widely in demand and creating learning paths for these via LinkedIn Learning. Using this data, we identified 10 jobs that are in-demand in todays economy and are well positioned to continue to grow in the future. These 10 jobs were identified as having the greatest number of job openings, have had steady growth over the past four years, pay a livable wage, and require skills that can be learned online.

Much of our skills work is targeted at providing people with the skills for these disciplines.

To help people pursue jobs in these areas, we are making LinkedInLearning pathsalignedwith each of these roles availablefree of charge through the end of March 2021. Each learning pathincludes a sequence of video content designed to help job seekersdevelop the core skills needed for each role. Each learning path is currently available in English, French, Spanish, and German.

LinkedIn Learnings library for each learning path also includes collaborative courses, all taught by industry-expert instructors, allowing individuals to move through content and demonstrate their learning with a certificate of completion. Covering a broad range of skills from entry-level digital literacy to advanced product-based skills for technology roles, these role-based learning paths provide numerous opportunities for people along a learning continuum to reskill and upskill. We believe these are the types of resources that can place in-demand roles within reach of millions of job seekers.

In addition to theseLinkedIn Learning paths, we are offering through Microsoft Learn free and in-depth technical learning content that also supports these roles. For roles that are more technical in nature, job seekers can go deeper on specific role-based Microsoft technologies with Microsoft Learn modules, gaining the most in-demand skills on widely used technologies.

We will also enable job seekers pursuing developer roles to access the GitHub Learning Lab to practice their skills. GitHub Learning Lab is a bot-based learning tool that uses repositories to teach technology, coding, Git, and GitHub via real-life, demo-based modules. This means that as job seekers engage in learning paths, they will have the opportunity to practice newly acquired skills by completing realistic projects in a personalized GitHub repository.

To provide people with easier access to the soft skills needed to pursue a new job, we are offering free access to four horizontal LinkedIn Learning paths. These are:

Finally, we are committed to developing and making available new courses and content that will focus on the skills needed to develop, deploy, and use technology in a responsible way. We recognize that issues such as privacy, security, digital safety, and the responsible application of artificial intelligence will continue to become even more important in the months and years ahead. We are committed to leading on these issues, not only for our own technologies but in assisting others to master needed skills as well.

Todays initiative also aims to help job seekersdemonstrate their skills to potential employers.This part of our initiative has multiple parts.

First, we will offer low-cost access to industry-recognized Microsoft Certifications based on exams that demonstrateproficiencyin Microsoft technologies.We are making exams for these Microsoft Certifications available at a significantly discounted fee of $15 available to those who self-attest that their employment has been impacted by COVID-19. This represents a large discount on the price of exams that typically cost more than $100. We are committed to supporting the integrity of certifications by enabling proctoring safely in an online setting that is accessible from anywhere. The $15 fee will be paid to and will enable third parties to scale to meet the potential surge in examination resources and will support the integrity of the certification by enabling proctoring via a safe, online setting that is accessible from anywhere. We will also work with governments, nonprofits, foundations, and other private sector partners if they wish to absorb this third-party cost.

Participants will have the ability to schedule an exam from September to the end of the year, and exam takers will have until March 31, 2021 to complete the exam. This will provide access to the exams that provide five fundamentals certifications and eight role-based certifications. These will include:

These exams will be available initially in whole or in part in seven languages English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese (simplified), and Korean.

We have found that these certifications are a powerful asset for job seekers and those looking to advance in an existing role. For example, in Global Knowledges 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report, more than half of IT decision-makers surveyed believe the main benefit of certified individuals is their ability to close organizational skills gaps seen in an everchanging technology environment. It also showed certifications helped make hiring easier, helping job seekers stand out. Among other things, these certifications, as well as completion of a learning path on LinkedIn Learning, can be added to an individuals LinkedIn profile.

We are also making available tools to help individuals identify and pursue potential jobs. This includes a recently developed job interview preparation-feature, powered by MSFT-AI, to prepare and practice for job interviews.It also includes a new feature we are announcing today called #OpenToWork, which enables job seekers to surface to employers the roles for which they would like to be considered.Through a simple LinkedIn profile photo frame, #OpenToWork enables job seekers to let employers and the LinkedIn network know they are actively seeking a new opportunity, indicate the type of job they are looking for, express their needs for support, and get help from the LinkedIn community to find new opportunities.

We believe the strength of these resources is their comprehensive nature. To help people find and navigate all of our offerings, we have made all of these resources accessible from a single location: opportunity.linkedin.com. A job seeker or anyone looking to develop these on-demand skills can start here and will be guided through the learning paths based on the roles in which they are interested.

In addition, Microsoft and LinkedIn will continue to provide on-ramps for people from nontraditional backgrounds to successfully transition from learning skills to landing a job. This will include the Microsoft Software & Systems Academy, or MSSA, which provides transitioning U.S. service members and veterans with technology skills.It also includes Leap, which Microsoft launched in 2015 to recruit, develop, upskill non-traditional talent, and create a connection to employability in the tech industry. And it includes REACH, which is a multi-year engineering apprenticeship program at LinkedIn.

Supporting these offerings with cash grants to nonprofits

While all these tools, training, and certifications will be available online to millions of people in multiple languages, we recognize the need to supplement them with additional services and support. Thats why we will provide $20 million in financial grants, plus technical support, to nonprofit organizations around the world.

In part this will enable nonprofits to translate these resources into additional languages and to localize and tailor the learning content. These groups will also provide and support teachers and facilitators to help learners complete learning pathways and certification, and provide connections to wrap-around supports, coaching, and mentoring. We expect these grants will enable the nonprofits to reach 5 million unemployed workers, with a focus on particularly vulnerable groups. This includes people with disabilities, people from low-income communities, and people from diverse backgrounds that are underrepresented in tech, including women and underrepresented minorities.

We are launching this initiative globally with several highly-regarded nonprofit partners, including:

Although this is a global initiative, its important to take special steps to make digital skills more accessible to communities of color in the United States. We are focusing on community-based nonprofits, which are local organizations created to address the unique needs of the people living in a community. They are often the most trusted and effective at driving positive impact. However, data has shown that there are disparities in the funding provided to community-based nonprofits serving in communities of color and led by people of color.

This needs to change. Therefore, as a part of this skills initiative, Microsoft will dedicate support to community-based nonprofit organizations working to increase skill development and economic opportunities for communities of color, especially Black and African American communities. We will provide $5 million in cash grants to community-based nonprofit organizations that are led by and serve communities of color in the United States. This summer, we will publish additional information on this opportunity and will select organizations for this funding by fall of this year. We recognize that this is but a small part of the long overdue investment needed to address historical racial inequities in our society. We look forward to partnering with communities and other like-minded individuals and organizations to use our voice and resources to advocate for change to support communities of color.

Using our voice on public policy issues

We are committed to sharing data and what we learn from this initiative with governments around the world. In addition, we will advocate for public policy innovations that we believe can help accelerate essential skills needs and opportunities. We plan to address three priorities:

One creative example comes from Canada, where workers who risk displacement in an economic downturn are encouraged to develop individual training plans ranging from upgrading skills in current jobs to preparing for promotions and even training for jobs outside the company. This Work-Sharing (WS) program helps employers and employees avoid layoffs when there is a temporary reduction in the normal level of business activity beyond the control of an employer. It provides income support to employees eligible for employment insurance benefits who work a temporarily reduced work week while their employer recovers. WS is a three-party agreement involving employers, employees and Service Canada. Employees must agree to a reduced work schedule and to share the available work for a specified time. The impacted employees are compensated with salary for participation in skills enhancement training, whether on-the-job or at off-site courses, during the days/hours missed because of participation in the WS program.

Good examples are plentiful. They include work in New Zealand, where the government has invested approximately $1 billion to make vocational training courses free for all agesover the next two years. In the United States, the Pledge to Americas Workers American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, established by the White House, is developing proposals focused on investments in learning pathways, skills-based hiring, and the modernization of education and training to accelerate reskilling and facilitate innovation in workforce development. Other examples include programs in countries such as Singapore and France to create Lifelong Learning Accounts or similar mechanisms that wouldallow individual employees, employers and,in some models,the public sector, to invest in training for individuals.

COVID-related stimulus spending creates an important opportunity to pursue these opportunities further. As the European Commission has recently recognized, a Next Generation EU recovery package should address the importance of digital skills. To improve and adapt skills, knowledge and competences, the commission will come forward with a Skills Agenda for Europe and an updated Digital Education Action Plan.

Coming next: A new learning app in Microsoft Teams

The programs we are launching today are focused on helping job seekers. We have a broader vision for skills. We believe we need a connected system of learning. Central to this vision is a recognition that employers have a vital role to play in helping their employees to skill and re-skill. We know that employers need additional tools and resources to help here. As we have talked with our customers, we have heard some key themes:

Just as companies today have a system of engagement for customers with CRM technology and a system of record with ERP, they will need a system of learning. This will need to provide a continuous feedback loop between the work, skills and learning required to succeed at the task at hand, as well as the credentials to accelerate career advancement.

To support this, we are developing and will preview a new learning app in Microsoft Teams later this year, to bring learning into the natural flow of work. People are already using Microsoft Teams for meetings, chat, calling, collaboration, and business processes, and we are planning to extend that to include learning. The Teams learning app will allow employers to integrate world-class content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, a customers own content, and other content providers all in one place, ranging from instructor-led training to shorter, micro-learning content. The app will empower managers to assign and track learning progress and enable employees to have conversations around the content while also earning certifications and recognition for their new skills. Whether a new employee is onboarding, a manager is looking to sharpen a teams skills, or a first-line worker is in the field needing immediate training, this new app will create a seamless experience for employees to learn in the flow of work.

Looking forward: A foundation for the skills and jobs of the future

As this detailed description makes clear, we are launching today the most comprehensive approach we have ever undertaken to meet the digital skilling needs of individuals and employers alike. We believe we can provide meaningful help to more than 25 million people globally in the coming months.

But in many ways, our ambitions are larger than this. For every part of Microsoft, including LinkedIn and GitHub, this marks a new beginning that will build on everything we have today and a new wave of technology innovation to come. We believe we can combine the best in technology with stronger partnerships with governments and nonprofits. Together we can better serve people, filling jobs and creating opportunities for individuals around the world. We should all aspire to turn a year that had a bleak beginning into a decade that has a bright finish. We bring a long-term determination and a commitment to do our part.

Watch the announcement event here and visit this site for more information.

*******

About LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning is an online educational platform that helps people discover and develop business, technology-related, and creative skills through expert-led course videos. With a catalogue of over 16,000 courses, and 60+ new courses released every week, LinkedIn Learning provides high-quality, relevant and up-to-date courses taught by real-world practitioners, located across the globe. Drawing on insights from millions of members, LinkedIn Learning personalizes course recommendations at scale and surfaces relevant learning content to each employee based on their connections.

About Microsoft Learn

Microsoft Learn is a free, interactive, hands-on training platform that helps people develop in-demand technical skills related to widely used Microsoft products and services including Azure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Microsoft Dynamics, and more.

Microsoft Learn combines short step-by-step trainings, browser-based interactive coding and scripting environments, and task-based achievements to help learners advance their technical skills and prepare for Microsoft Certifications. With millions of registered learners, Microsoft Learn offers over 225 learning paths, more than 1,000 modules, and is localized in dozens of languages. Microsoft Learn is great for individual users to advance their skills, as well as organizations that want to create curated employee training paths.

Tags: Brad Smith, education, Global skills initiative, Training

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Microsoft launches initiative to help 25 million people worldwide acquire the digital skills needed in a COVID-19 economy - Microsoft

Alberta's hurry-up corporate tax cut is less an investment in the future than a gift to the biggest current players, say experts

Premier Jason Kenney, with his neweconomic recovery plan Monday, had some words to encourage those of us who despair that too many of Albertas eggs are in one black, tarry basket. Hisgovernment has sector-specific strategies coming for forestry, tourism, aviation and more. Having shredded the former NDP governments tech firm incentive programsand some degree of sectoral confidence with itKenney promises bold, new startup incentive grants to replace them. And to finance thisnewfound bit of interventionism, Finance Minister Travis Toews casually discarded years of his United Conservative Partys deficit-hawk dogma by noting a difference between good debt and bad debtthe sort of thing his crew would pillory Rachel Notleys New Democrats for saying.

Kenney seemed most animated about his new rescue plan for his provinces recessionary economy when he was talking about his pitch to steal financial firms away from Toronto. As of Wednesday, Albertas corporate tax rate will fall to eight per cent, down three pointsfrom the current rate and 3.5 percentage points below Ontarios.

What do you think were going after? Kenney said with such a salesman-like zeal that, if you werent looking, you might imaginehe was whipping off his suit jacket and rolling up his sleeves. All those banks and insurance companies down on Bay Street that are paying way more taxes, their workers are paying way more taxes, they are paying way more for rent, theyre fighting Toronto traffic

Were going to be telling them they can save money for their shareholders, for their workers, for their operations, by relocating financial and fin-tech jobs to places like downtown Calgary and downtown Edmonton.

RELATED:The end of Alberta exceptionalismwell, the part Jason Kenney never cared for

Why, Albertas premier was so convinced of his pitch that he declared firms would be irresponsible if they dont consider moving operations to Alberta.

Reach for the stars, right? That seemed to be the goofy economic-development lesson of cities from Winnipeg to Hamilton, Ont. to Tucson, Ariz. when they launched flashy bids during that Willy-Wonka-meets-corporate-welfare dash for Amazons secondary headquarters. There was a period around 2006, when Albertas oil economy was rocketing upwards so quickly, and big firms like Imperial Oil had shifted their bases west, that a few starry-eyed observers wondered whether a Big Five bank would naturally follow andgaspmaybe the whole axis of corporate Canada would come with it.

In that vein, its charming to see that optimism sparked again in a period when Albertas oil sector is at catastrophically low ebb. A few resource booms ago, being near the hard-chugging engine of the national economy may have been alluring enough to financial institutions to offset the inconvenience of being two time zones away from Bay Street and Wall Street. But now that Calgary has lost its lustre, Kenneys Discount Zone pitch smacks of trying to woo a modern tech giant with oodles of free parking.

Before COVID, with so many of Albertas corporate offices vacant, the appeal of low office rents in high-quality buildings had become a big economic development pitch. Then the pandemic shifted how the world works, making corporations rethink their need for oodles of office space. Soon Calgary may not be alone with its hollow core.

The tax cut on corporate profits, meanwhile, does make Alberta the bargain-basement place to make big money in Canada. The problem is that Kenney announced last year hed slash the rate to eight per cent by 2022hes simply moving it up a couple years. So this isnt new information for anybody in Bay Street plotting a big move of employees that would takeyears.

RELATED:Jason Kenney and the oil sands: look whos statist now

These are long-term, strategic thinkers.The minute the rate cut was announced theyd integrated it into their decisions, says Philip Bazel, research associate with the University of Calgary School of Public Policy. Kenneys team tends to dismiss criticism from the NDP that corporate tax cuts are mere plums for plutocrats, but rushing out the full tax cut all at once is a benefit for current players in Alberta, not future ones. The decision to do it right away is giving a gift to firms that have already made investments and are earning profits on those investments, says Michael Smart, a University of Toronto Economist. The common practice is to avoid that giveaway or windfall gain to existing companies by phasing in that rate reduction over time.

Why do it fast? Kenney says its to prove to investors Alberta wont back down from its tax cut plans the way the United Kingdom did recently, or Saskatchewan did four years ago, or Ontario did way back in 2012. Another possible reason: Kenney cannot double down on the oil sector as he might have in the past, so hes reaching for the familiarity of a key campaign pledge. Its a policy that was supposed to take $2.4 billion from the provincial treasury when it was phased in; there wasno immediate measure of what the all-at-once move will cost the already depleted Alberta coffers. (Meanwhile, those looking for child care or renewable energy in Kenneys recovery plan will be disappointed; he may have a newfound appreciation for deficitsbut hes still among Canadas most resolutely conservative leaders.)

Kenneys government calls it the job creation tax cut,citingpre-pandemic research predicting tens of thousands of jobs would be created by new or relocated companies, as well as existing Alberta firms with more money to spend. With a cut so deep and quick, however, Smart foresees little new job creation but a lot of Ontario-based companies booking profits in Alberta to pay lower tax ratesshades of the Quebec shuffle that occurred in the 1980s when that province slashed corporate taxes to undercut Ontario. Capital moves slowly; accountants move fast, Smart says.

RELATED:The coronavirus market crash leaves Alberta running on fumes

In the meantime, other premiers may be tempted to cut rates apace, creating a race to the bottom that nobody wins. But this is what happens when economic tides shift, and jurisdictions begin competing against each other for investments they might not otherwise get. For many years, the strength of Albertas fossil fuel-based economy allowed it to forego the economic-development competitions that other regions muckaround with.With the resource-driven Alberta advantage greatly eroded, race to the bottom could become a new provincial modus operandi.

Albertas premier flashed another big-dollar item to an anxious public Monday$10 billion in infrastructure, with echoes of the Harper governments response to the 2008 recession. But $7 billion of that was already booked in Albertas budget, and a further $1.5 billion is already pledged toward the provinces new stake in the Keystone XL pipeline, the ever-in-peril Canada-U.S. bitumen conduit. Even when diversification is Kenneys new watch-word, oil habits die hard.

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Jason Kenney reaches for economic heights with a race to the bottom - Maclean's

By Lotta Heikkonen, Forest Policy Adviser at Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF) and at Nordic Family Forestry (NSF).

Forests and forest-based industries have an important role in strengthening the low-carbon circular bioeconomy. The circular bioeconomy provides sustainable alternatives to fossil-based materials and fossil energy, helping decouple economic growth from resource depletion and environmental impact.

The overall climate benefits of forests and harvested wood products include sequestration of CO2 by forest growth thanks to sustainable forest management; the carbon storage effect of harvested circular forest-based products; the substitution effects of replacing carbon-intensive and fossil-based materials and fuels with forest-based materials. On a system level, this is the most efficient carbon emission reduction system we have today. This is why the EUs forest and forest-based sectors have crucial role to play in achieving the blocs 2050 carbon-neutrality goal.

Today, instead of just lumber and pulp, the side streams of production and chemical compounds of wood are in focus to be used as raw materials for new forest-based products. A wood-based compound called lignin is in the spotlight for developing new solutions ranging from pharmaceuticals and cosmetics to packaging and energy solutions. It is even possible to process lignin into a carbon intermediate for electrode materials used in cell phone batteries and other daily electric appliances like Stora Enso is doing at the Sunila mill in Finland.

There have been surprising end uses for new bio-based products. For example, Noireco was exploring whether their biochar could be used to replace coal in energy production when they realised that another interesting end-use for their products was soil improvement and filtering. Biochar is naturally porous and can absorb tiny particles.

What are the important values for the forest sector and society? One of the key of successes of the forest-based industry is the innovative cooperation across the value chain. Starting from the sustainable forest management to products that can be recycled or reused, the forest-based sector needs to work together to get the best value out of wood.

CEPF (Confederation of European Forest Owners) (@CEPFSecretariat) is one of four founding members of the forest-based Sector Technology Platform which has established the European research and innovation priorities of the sector towards 2030 in its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda.

The reorientation towards a fossil-free, circular bio-based economy, moving away from the fossil-based economy, is indispensable. The forest-based sector actors, including European forest owners, are ready to become the most competitive, innovative and sustainable provider of net-zero carbon solutions for a climate-neutral Europe, as explained in the forest-based industry 2050 vision.

Lotta Heikkonen represents European private forest owners in EU level policy making on forest related policies. For more information about the topics raised in this article, please contact Lotta on lotta.heikkonen@mtk.fi

Guest posts do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bio Market Insights editorial team and management.

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By securing victory in a national vote on constitutional changes, Vladimir Putin could now remain president of Russia until 2036 if he chooses to stand again. After 20 years in power, the narrative of Russias chaotic 1990s remains core to Putins legitimacy as the leader who restored stability.

Although the decade still divides public opinion, whats not in doubt is that it was a dangerous and exciting period. The ambiguity of the 90s is summed up by the then-popular Russian word, bespredel, the title of a 1989 prison drama meaning anarchic freedom and unaccountable authority.

At the time, Russias turbulent post-Soviet transition was seen as a lurid sideshow to a stable post-cold war west. A generation later, the uncertainties of that period have a wider resonance than they did at the time.

Demise of the democrats

The 1990s began with the Soviet Unions first multiparty elections in March 1990 when Boris Yeltsin emerged as leader of Russia. It ended, punctually, on December 31, 1999, when Yeltsin resigned in favour of Putin, his designated successor.

The decade included two failed coups in 1991 and 1993, and the abolition of both the ruling Communist Party and the USSR. Massive economic dislocation occurred as Soviet economic ties were severed, a market economy was created and shock therapy accompanied by mass privatisation.

The social impact was immense. Life expectancy fell, with up to five million excess adult deaths in Russia in 1991-2001, birth rates collapsed and both of these trends were compounded by widespread crime and trafficking. These negative effects were concentrated in periods of economic crisis in 1991-94 and 1998-99.

Sharply rising inequality and the emergence of a new wealthy class, including some leading reformers, meant that the term democrat had become a term of abuse as early as 1992.

St Petersburgs reformers

My own research from that period shows how the concentration of power was a trend right from the beginning of the reforms. It was from part of the reform movement itself that the style of government associated with Putin emerged.

I arrived in St Petersburg in 1991, expecting to study the conflict between democratic and communist ideologies. Instead, I found that the conflict was between two groups of reformers those who supported strong executive rule and those in favour of representative or parliamentary rule. It was a re-match of the 19th century Russian debate between protagonists of state and society. In both cases it was the statists who won.

For advocates of strong executive rule, such as the leading reformer and mayor of St Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak under whom Putin served as deputy elected councillors were an obstacle to efficient governance.

All reformers united in opposing the attempted coup by hardline Soviets in August 1991, but from then on the split in the reform camp between the advocates of executive and representative powers grew wider. It culminated in October 1993, in a brief armed conflict between president and parliament. The parliamentary forces were mostly anti-liberal nationalists, but they were also supported by councils. Among them was the reformer-led St Petersburg council, then deep in a legal conflict with Sobchak, its former chair, over what councillors saw as his excessive concentration of power.

Yeltsin ordered his forces to fire on the parliament to quell the attempted coup. With parliament defeated, most regional and city councils across the country were dissolved and replaced by assemblies with reduced powers.

The conflict between Sobchak and his former allies continued until his death in 1999. By then his former deputy, Putin had reached the apex of executive power at national level taking many of Sobchaks St Petersburg team to form the core of his Kremlin administration.

Acting President Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila offere condolences to Lyudmila Narusova, widow of Anatoly Sobchak. Photo: By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0

Power, concentrated

Concentration of power at all levels of the hierarchy meant a more intensive zero-sum struggle to win it, rather than the compromises inherent to parliamentary systems. Higher stakes meant aggressive mobilisation of media for an information war became a feature of 1990s electoral politics at regional level, following the pattern of the 1996 presidential election.

By then, the corruption associated with privatisation had made Yeltsin and the reformers unpopular and many feared the communists would return to power. The democrats had to resort to desperate measures. Every possible resource was mobilised to ensure that Yeltsin was re-elected including deals with powerful oligarchs with large media empires. The communists were defeated but the price was endemic cynicism about the democratic process.

The Yeltsin presidency remained beholden to Russias regional governors and the oligarchs. It fell to Putin to curtail the powers of these groups, campaigning in 2000 under the slogan of the dictatorship of law. That such a slogan could have popular support shows the degree to which the public had become disillusioned in the late 1990s. However, the direction towards concentration of power had been set almost a decade before Putin was elected president.

Russias reformers of the 90s largely achieved the irreversible economic change they wanted. They were less successful in creating a positive narrative for the new Russia. Reform had seemed to be based on the idea that Russia needed to learn as much as possible from the west. Over time, disillusion with this idealised view of the west grew and public opinion became more nationalistic.

By the late 1990s, nationalism was both a threat and an opportunity. As in the era of Putins reputed role model, Tsar Alexander III in the late 19th century, the policy appeared to be for nationalism to provide the state with an ideology while centralisation would contain it from getting out of hand. The new constitutional changes Putin has now introduced continue this dual path of greater concentration of power and emphasis on national identity and sovereignty and both have their origins in the early 1990s.

Adrian Campbell, senior lecturer in International Development, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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