New perks and how to rest

Welcome to Clock In, TIME's monthly LinkedIn-only newsletter about the changing world of work. This month, we're exploring how quickly AI could affect our jobs, why unemployment still carries a stigma, and a new benefit your company could offer.

Will AI take your job? Maybe not just yet, one study says

Billy Perrigo reports: Will artificial intelligence take our jobs? If you listen to Silicon Valley executives talking about the capabilities of today’s cutting edge AI systems, you might think the answer is “yes, and soon.”

But a new paper published by MIT researchers suggests automation in the workforce might happen slower than you think.

The researchers at MIT’s computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory studied not only whether AI was able to perform a task, but also whether it made economic sense for firms to replace humans performing those tasks in the wider context of the labor market.

They found that while computer vision AI is today capable of automating tasks that account for 1.6% of worker wages in the U.S. economy (excluding agriculture), only 23% of those wages (0.4% of the economy as a whole) would, at today’s costs, be cheaper for firms to automate instead of paying human workers. “Overall, our findings suggest that AI job displacement will be substantial, but also gradual—and therefore there is room for [government] policy and retraining to mitigate unemployment impacts,” the authors write.

Perrigo explains the economic factors at play as well as what AI is capable of as it pertains to jobs. Read more here.

Undoing the stigma of unemployment

Ofer Sharone writes, "Regardless of prestigious degrees and impressive work experience, the careers of almost all American workers are made unpredictable by routine layoffs. It was not always like this."

Sharone, associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of "The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed," explains that "American workers are anxious because anyone can fall."

"There are no reliable shields against an invisible but powerful force which can rapidly erase past educational and professional achievements: stigma. Once a worker becomes unemployed they are stigmatized in the eyes of potential employers. This can be clearly seen in studies where researchers send fake resumes to companies with real job openings. These resumes are identical in terms of skills and qualifications and differ only in whether or not the applicant has a current employment gap. From these studies, we know that employers are far less likely to invite unemployed applicants for job interviews."

Read more about the stigma of unemployment and how to move past it here.

Your company could match your student loan payments to your 401(k). Here’s how that will work

Solcyré Burga reports: Student loan borrowers may be able to take advantage of a new workplace benefit that would allow employers to contribute towards their 401(k) while they pay off their student loans.

The new benefit functions similarly to a regular 401(k) match, except borrowers have to be making payments towards their student loans, but do not need to be making any contributions towards their retirement plan.

“Employers can select which retirement plan is eligible to receive the benefit. From there, all employees eligible in that plan would become eligible for the student debt retirement match, regardless of whether they hold federal or private student loans,” Moore says.?

Learn more about this potential perk and its benefits here.

Rest takes hard work

"Too often, rest gets a bad rap in our always-on, work-obsessed world. It's also the case that learning to rest well is actually?hard. Why is that? And how can we rest better?" writes Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a professional futurist with 20 years studying people, technology, and the worlds they make. Pang explains how the American attitude about rest over time, and the benefit of rest to your life.

"So let’s say you take rest seriously, recognize its importance for their health and performance, and calculate that a more disciplined, measured approach to work will pay off in the long run. How can you get started?"

Read here for Pang's advice.

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This newsletter was curated by Kari Sonde and edited by Samantha Cooney.