Center for Global Work and Employment Events

This talk introduces an important theory in evolutionary biology: the r/K strategy theory.

Organizations increasingly use algorithms to determine who gets hired, how workers are evaluated, and even who gets fired. To examine the implications of organizations’ use of algorithms in the labor process, I conducted a longitudinal study of one the largest digital labor platforms for high-skilled work. I found workers were confronted with and responded to the algorithms controlling them in ways that existing theory does not adequately account for. First, new workers engaged in practices which inadvertently contributed to suboptimal wages and inefficient job matching when then they encountered the “cold start” problem: the algorithm struggled to recommend new workers to jobs primarily because they had no prior rating history. Second, for experienced workers who obtain a rating evaluation, the platform's algorithms create what I call "reputational interdependence": the platform's algorithms share workers' rating scores within and across other digital platforms and organizations, without workers' consent or control. Together, I theorize how algorithms enable platforms to control high-skilled workers within an “invisible cage”: an environment in which organizations embed the rules and guidelines for how workers should behave in opaque algorithms that shift without providing notice, explanation, or recourse for workers. It is ‘invisible’ because organizations can use algorithms to change the rules and criteria for success at an unprecedented speed and scale without notice or explanation. It is a ‘cage’ because these algorithms increasingly control our opportunities without our say.

The Center for Global Work and Employment (CGWE), Rutgers Global, and the TUP Academy (based in New Jersey, U.S.) partnered to launch TUP@Rutgers, an innovative non-degree, pre-college preparatory program for highly qualified international students.

The Center for Global Work and Employment (CGWE), in partnership with Rutgers Global, hosted the 5th Summer Camp, Frontiers of Labor and Human Resources Management, at Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus from July 28 to August 19, 2025. Nine students from Renmin University of China, Macau University of Science and Technology, and Korea University participated in the program.

CGWE co-organized the Global Labor Governance Forum: Knowledge, Institutions, and Practices for Sustainable Globalization with Renmin University’s School of Labor and Human Resources and the Beijing Office of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The forum took place in Beijing, China, on July 12, 2025, and drew more than 50 researchers and practitioners from the U.S., the U.K., China, and the ILO.

The Center for Global Work and Employment (CGWE) co-organized the conference Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work: Theory, Policy, and Practice with the School of Public Administration of South China University of Technology, the India-Pakistan Center of South China University of Technology, the ESRC Centre for the Digital Future of Work, and the Guangdong Social Security Research Center. Held in Guangzhou, China, on July 4–5, 2025, the event brought together more than 50 researchers from the U.S., Canada, Australia, and China.

Together with the Productivity Network, the University of Newfoundland, the University of Alberta, Toronto Metropolitan University, and the Rutgers Network of Work-Studies Scholars, the Center for Global Work and Employment (CGWE) organized the international conference AI, Remote Work, and Productivity at Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada, on May 8–9, 2025. More than 100 researchers, Canadian government officials, and practitioners participated. Rutgers professors Mingwei Liu (SMLR), Jennifer Hunt (Economics), and Yanhong Jin (Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics) presented their research. The conference also featured a workshop for a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Productivity Analysis on AI, remote work, and productivity.

Join the Labor Studies and Employment Relations Department and the Center for Global Work and Employment for a presentation by Rina Agarwala (Sociology, Johns Hopkins University) on "Union‐Cooperative Collaborations: Toward a Global Framework of Analysis" beginning at 11:30am in the Labor Education Center, Room 115.

This talk will show the effects of digitalisation on the skills and autonomy of a specific type of knowledge worker - industrial scientists - using labour process theory (LPT) and the concept of the "texture of skill change." The findings emphasise that skill changes are complex, nonlinear, and deeply intertwined with the material, relational, and situational aspects of work.

Youth unemployment and underemployment, especially among college graduates, have surged to unprecedented levels in recent years in China. In this study, we highlight youth unemployment and underemployment as prevalent yet distinct phenomena, and explore their trends and determinants over the past few decades. We further investigate the political implications of youth unemployment and underemployment.