Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity

For today's installment of Ask Us Anything, we will be discussing the digital skill divide. I am your host, Nye Hodge. I am a senior research analyst at the Atlanta Fed, sitting within the Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity. The center is a nationally focused think-and-do tank. We leverage data, both quantitative and qualitative, to understand hindrances to full employment in the labor market. We also leverage partnerships to create and support data-led initiatives to tackling some of today's pressing workforce issues.

We are joined by a very holistic panel:

• Amanda Bergson-Shilcock is a senior fellow at National Skills Coalition, wearing one of many hats today, including policy expert.
• Annette Taylor joins us from the great State of North Carolina, where she is the director of the Office of Digital Equity and Literacy for the state.
• Bobby McNeil is a seasoned tech recruiter and chapter president of the Blacks in Technology Foundation.
• Kennon Harrison joins us from Revature, where he is the vice president of workforce partnerships. Revature is a digital skill training provider that has created a pipeline from training to job placement.

The views that will be expressed today, by myself and the panelists, do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta or the Federal Reserve System.

Today's discussion is rooted in a report released earlier this year by National Skills Coalition and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta called Closing the Digital Skill Divide. Amanda, our coresearcher, Roderick Taylor, and I spent many months researching and building this report. We found that a staggering 92 percent of jobs require some form of digital skills—47 percent require "definitely digital skills" and 45 percent require "likely digital skills."

"Definitely digital skills" are inherently digital like computer literacy, Microsoft Office, and machine learning. "Likely digital skills" can be performed digitally or by hand, but we suspect in our highly digitalized country most of those skills are likely being performed digitally. Just 8 percent of jobs require no digital skills.

Across all 50 states, we see a critical mass of jobs calling for digital skills. Even when we drill down and just look at demand for definitely digital skills, we still see consistent level of demand across states. The demand for definitely digital skills is not only high in states like California, where Silicon Valley is, or Washington state, where Microsoft and Amazon are headquartered, or New York. Even in Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, where demand is lowest, two out of every five online job posts called for definitely digital skills.

All industries require digital skills. Of course, we see the highest demand in the Information industry where the tech sector sits, and in finance and insurance. But the stand outs are manufacturing where 60 percent of jobs require definitely digital skills. There are huge amounts of digital skills popping up where, based on convention, we'd least expect:

• Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction–44 percent of jobs require definitely digital skills
• Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting–41 percent of jobs require definitely digital skills
• Construction–39 percent of jobs require definitely digital skills
• Transportation and warehousing–3 percent of jobs require definitely digital skills
• Health care and social assistance–3 percent of jobs require definitely digital skills
• Even in accommodation and food services, the industry with the lowest demand for digital skills, almost a quarter of jobs are calling for definitely digital skills.

We also know that digital skills pay and that workers earn more when they acquire more digital skills:

• The national median hourly pay for jobs that require no digital skills is $17.62.
• Moving from a job requiring no digital skills to one boosts median pay 23 percent.
• From one digital skill to five, pay increases 41 percent
• From no digital skills to nine, median pay goes up 144 percent.

Not only do workers earn more, but so do states. The example here is based on North Carolina. When a worker moves from a job with zero digital skills to just one, depending on their family composition, they will contribute around $1,387 to $2,816 in additional state and federal taxes. Imagine that number multiplied over tens of thousands of workers, or even hundreds of thousands of workers.

Bobby, please speak to how gaps in digital literacy and digital skills can be a real hinderance to a job seeker gaining and an employee retaining a job.

Bobby McNeil: First, it's important for us to understand what digital skills are. Digital skills are skills that will allow a person to manage and operate digital devices, whether it's a mobile or desktop application, or even a platform for sharing and managing information. I think it's necessary for us to acknowledge the digital transformation that has occurred over the last few years. One of the historic things that escalated this transformation was the pandemic, where the world became more virtual—virtual meetings, virtual working spaces, an increase in remote work, etc. Work required using multiple digital applications and digital products, often in a home office where it was crucial to have network access.

Digital skills also allow an individual to earn more income, whether in FinTech, EdTech, or in other industries. Digital skills allow for more job opportunities, more upskilling, and reskilling as these digital transitions continue to take place. Job descriptions are based around digital skills and computer literacy at the basic level. At higher levels, they're based around more advanced applications like AutoCAD. It's important to keep up with the technological advances in your industry. It provides opportunities for individuals to break into other industries if they have these skills. Even becoming an entrepreneur requires these skills.

Amanda, the federal government has been making what people are calling a once in a generation investment in infrastructure and jobs. What do practitioners, businesses, and folks working to solve the digital skills divide need to know about funding coming down through the Digital Equity Act and the BEAD Act? And if you will, also address any common misconceptions you've been hearing on your countless webinars and crisscrossing across the country.

Amanda Bergson-Shilcock: Digital skills are important at every stage of the career process, whether someone is an entrepreneur, at an early stage of their career, or using more advanced applications. Our research revealed that even occupations like farm workers, janitors, or who we learned to call "essential workers, "who are not always paid or recognized as the truly essential people that they are, these jobs also increasingly require digital skills.

I work for National Skills Coalition, which is a big-tent, bipartisan coalition of workforce and education advocates focused on high-quality skills-training and education so that businesses, particularly small businesses, have access to the skilled workforce they need.

Congress did make a once-in-a-generation investment through the bipartisan infrastructure law, which includes $2.75 billion in digital equity funding and $42 billion in broadband equity, access, and deployment funding. Just as the government made investments to bring electricity to communities, now the government is investing to bring high-speed internet to communities across the country. There are two pots of money that are coming to each state. One, every state is getting formula funding that will come automatically to the state, and two states, nonprofits, and other entities are also able to apply for competitive grants.

Congress wrote equity into the bones of this law. Covered populations in this act include veterans, rural residents, people of color, older adults (people over the age of 60), English language learners, and people of limited means. There's a whole host of protected populations under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding.

It's up to us as state and local advocates and actors to make the equity promise real. Never in the history of the US have we accidentally done a good job of serving marginalized communities. It has only ever happened from deep, intentional, deliberate work and advocacy, often by people that weren't paid to do this work and didn't have job titles that reflected their efforts.

These are the two things I hope you take away from my comments:

1. There is a public comment period where you can chime in on your state's 5-year plans for how they plan to spend this federal money. This will occur in late summer or early fall depending on your state, and I hope all of you take advantage of this opportunity. Learn more about your state's comment process here.
2. Talk to your friends, neighbors, fellow stakeholders, and advocates to make sure they're aware of this funding and the opportunity to make sure that your voice is heard. What does this need to look like in your community? Do libraries, correctional facilities, or other local programs need to be involved? Who has been doing this work without the recognition, labor, or funding? How do we make sure these are included in the plan? There is a danger that if we don't speak up, it will be business as usual. Communities that have been shut out many times before could once again find themselves on the margin. It's exciting, but we have some urgency to act.

Annette, are there any nuggets of particularly useful information you'd like to share with other states about securing the federal dollars Amanda mentioned? What are some innovative things North Carolina is doing or planning to do at the state level to invest in digital literacy and skill building?

Annette Taylor: Governor Roy Cooper created the Office of Digital Equity and Literacy in 2021 to solidify and show his comment to prioritizing closing the digital divide. Subsequently, he instructed the office to bring home funding from as many sources as possible. We recently received a grant from the FCC's Affordable Connectivity Outreach Grant Program. Prior to the creation of this office, North Carolina had secured a Workforce Innovation Grant, both of which helped position us to begin closing the digital divide and prepare us to utilize the funding that Amanda just mentioned. We're very focused on building capacity in local communities so that we can meet their digital needs. We need everyone across the state working together to do this, so we prioritize partnerships with our funding. One of our priorities that we have already invested in is making sure that all 100 counties in North Carolina have a digital inclusion plan and ensuring those counties provide needed resources to these communities.

There's an initiative with North Carolina State University to assist counties with the creation of these plans with various stakeholders. We feel this is an essential step in preparing them to compete for funding and execute these digital equity plans. We also have nonprofit organizations that we're partnering with and supporting for device distribution. We're still investing American Rescue Plan funding across the state that focuses on digital literacy and devices, with partners like E-2-D and Kramden that help people access devices and learn how to use them. There's also the Digital Navigator program here in Charlotte that serve as trainers for other digital literacy programs across the state. Later today we'll be announcing the first Digital Navigator Initiative with three anchor institutions in North Carolina.

There are some other interesting things going on in North Carolina that I want people to know about. Our community college system, another anchor institution, is planning to use $1.3 million to work in 20 different community colleges in Tier 1 and Tier 2 counties to create a Spanish version of the digital navigator certificate. After that's complete, they'll recruit participants from the surrounding counties. We're also working with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension, which is based out of our university system, to establish a digital literacy program. They already do a lot of that, but they're going to expand their efforts. The press release is going to come out today stating that we're using $4 million of our ARPA funds to invest in this effort. Lastly, our digital equity survey that we are deploying is aimed at identifying the gaps in North Carolina.

Kennon, can you speak to how Revature's earn-to-learn model is critical, especially for your low- and moderate-income clients? Then, please speak to how private-sector companies, like Revature, can support public-sector initiatives and investment in solving the digital skill divide.

Kennon Harrison: Revature is the largest employer of entry-level tech talent, according to LinkedIn. We hired approximately 500 people per month last year across the US. We're big, and we work with big companies—most of our clients are Fortune 500 companies that have a lot of open jobs. As we've moved to a larger scale, we've started to realize that the problem from a "talent gap" and digital skills divide gap is actually not a talent gap. There are millions of talented people all over the US that could do all of these jobs.

There is an opportunity gap and an empowerment gap. There are literally not enough people who believe it's possible for them to attain a tech career to fill the available jobs in the US. Just a few numbers—there are about 100,000 computer science degrees conferred annually across every institution in the US. Across every HBCU combined, that number is 962. Across every tribal college, that number is 13. We have an empowerment gap.

At Revature, we have a hire-train-deploy program that is an earn-to-learn model. It removes every conceivable barrier in terms of the cost of education and getting your foot in the door to a tech job. We hire people as W-2 employees, help them invest in a 401(k) plan, and train them for the first 10-12 weeks of their employment. We train them to the specifications of exactly what our clients want. We're not guessing. When our employees are finished training, they have the exact competencies that a company is looking for.

When you're bringing talent to a major Fortune 500 company and the talent has the exact skills that they're looking for, you have a strong placement rate. We have a 97 percent placement rate and a 90 percent 4-year retention rate. Our model also provides a level of empowerment to those who wouldn't normally believe that these opportunities are available to them. We're giving away hundreds of hours of skill-building content to as many people as possible because there literally aren't enough people to fill the jobs that require these skills.

We need to empower more people to believe that digital skills and digital jobs are possible for them. Government dollars, discretionary dollars, nonprofit dollars, and grants are integral. But in my opinion, we won't close the gap until industry invests in workforce development. Industry has to be incented to invest effectively in workforce development across the board—tech, nursing, manufacturing, every job that requires skills-training. This workforce development ecosystem can prove that industry investment in workforce is effective, economical, and right and good. We can do it at scale right now, today.

I also want to lift up what Revature is doing in rural communities around this issue. Our training is all virtual, so it's accessible to anyone with internet and allows us to reach people all across the country. It's all synchronous and it's a 40-hour per week job, but it's virtual. Our company is 60 percent underrepresented minorities. We're the largest employer of entry-level tech talent in the US. We're in a great position to advocate for and serve these underrepresented groups, including rural residents. According to the Department of Education IPEDS database, of the 100,000 computer science degrees conferred annually, 805 are from institutions classified as rural institutions by DOE.

There's a significant empowerment among rural communities. Having grown up in the rural south, it's a completely different mentality. The idea of becoming a Salesforce administrator, for instance, never enters your mind. The tech adjacent jobs that don't require coding experience are able to close a lot of these gaps and provide opportunities for people utilize the creative problem-solving skills they've developed. These are commonly engendered in rural communities just because of where they are and how people in those communities grow up. AI tools and declarative tools make these skills integral to large scale employers, and this can be done remotely. There's a great opportunity to invest in these rural and semirural communities, and it's an untapped talent pool. If we don't address this, it's going to create and perpetuate a variety of socioeconomic issues that will become insurmountable.

In closing, closing of the digital skill divide is critical from an employer point of view and it's critical to the success of industries across the country. Every single vertical is going to require some or all digital skills. If we don't close the divide, it's an immediate term labor issue, economic growth issue, and resource issue. It's also going to be a geopolitical and sociopolitical issue moving forward. Closing the divide and pathways using these skills is critical to the success of our country, our economy, and our communities.

McNeil: From my perspective as a tech recruiter for over a decade, closing the digital divide is critical. Earning income is critical for our communities. As I mentioned earlier, we need to know what digital skills are. They're not just tech skills and the more advanced skills in the tech industry. Digital skills are fundamental. How do you operate a digital divide, operate a POS system, basic administrative tasks that used to be manual but are now digital? These skills are necessary to support the evolution of our workforce. The future is digital.

Bergson-Shilcock: Digital transformation accelerates every trend in America, good and bad. It accelerates the impact of structural racism, it accelerates the impact of higher wages and job opportunities, it accelerates the impact of consolidation of corporations and fields. Not only does it affect every job and occupation, it's also something that could be good or bad depending on how we make use of this. If we just let it roll over us like a tide, it will hit us like every previous wave of transformation. Some workers will be invested in it and others won't. Some companies will be able to adapt, and others won't. If we take it as a moment of opportunity to walk the walk around equity, small businesses, and rural communities, we can use this wave of digital transformation to create a more successful and economically beneficial society for everyone. We can't do what we've always done before, which will be scary for some policymakers and some stakeholders. This is an amazing moment to change the shape of the river, and we should not miss that opportunity.

Taylor: At the state, we have become experts at listening to our communities, stakeholders, and partners. We recognize how the digital divide remains a barrier to inclusionary economic growth. Partnerships are key to our success in closing this digital divide. We're being intentional about how and where we partner. We hope to inform policymakers around these investments and future investments in digital skills. The more this divide is closed, the more we create an economy that works for everyone and thereby create more revenue for the state. It's an important issue for everyone.

This Q&A Digest has been derived from the Ask Us Anything session on "Closing the Digital Skill Divide" held May 31, 2023, with Annette Taylor, director of the Office of Digital Equity and Literacy, North Carolina Department of Information Technology, Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, senior fellow with the National Skills Coalition, Kennon Harrison, vice president of workforce partnerships at Revature, and Bobby McNeil, Raleigh-Durham chapter president of the Blacks In Technology Foundation.

The comments included are made by Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity staff members along with our panelists, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta or the Federal Reserve System.

The Atlanta Fed and the Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity do not provide funding for grants or programs, nor does it select grant recipients or program participants. The Atlanta Fed does not provide investment advice of any type.

Key Takeaways

• 92 percent of jobs across all sectors require digital skills.¹ Many of these required skills are foundational digital skills, like typing or the ability to use a mobile phone, rather than advanced digital skills like coding.
• Analysis of job posting data shows that workers earn more when they take jobs that require digital skills.²
• Congress provided funding to improve digital access and skills through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (commonly referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) which includes $2.75 billion in Digital Equity Act funding and $42.45 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.³
• Partnerships are critical to closing the digital divide – whether with nonprofits, educational institutions, local organizations, or employers. Investing in closing the divide can benefit individuals, businesses, governments, and the economy at large.
• There is a public comment period that begins in late summer or early fall that allows you to provide input on your state’s 5-year plan for this funding. Learn more about your state’s comment process here.

Resources

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta:
Closing the Digital Skill Divide is a report produced by the National Skills Coalition authored by CWEO staff member Nye Hodge and NSC staff members Amanda Bergson-Shilcock and Roderick Taylor.
Opportunity Occupations Monitor tracks trends in jobs that offer salaries of at least the U.S. annual median wage (adjusted for local cost of living differences) for which employers do not require a bachelor’s degree–opportunity occupations–in states and metro areas.
Workforce Currents includes articles on various workforce topics addressing research, policy, and practice.
Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity Events describes upcoming events and includes registration links for Ask Us Anything webinar sessions.

Resources from our panelists, partners, and the field:
Find information about your state’s plan for broadband and digital equity Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding at https://www.internetforall.gov/interactive-map
Landscape of Digital Literacy | National Skills Coalition
Digital Literacy Assessment | Northstar
Affordable Connectivity Outreach Grant Program | Federal Communications Commission
Building a New Digital Economy in North Carolina | North Carolina State University
North Carolina Digital Navigator Program | The Center for Digital Equity

Speaker Bios

Kennon Harrison, Vice President, Workforce Partnerships, Revature

Kennon Harrison serves as vice president of workforce partnerships at Revature, the nation’s largest employer of entry-level technology talent, overseeing talent enablement and workforce partnerships in the United States, Canada, and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). Previously, he led university partnerships at Emeritus and Academic Partnerships, specializing in the structuring, market positioning, and development of online degree programs from the undergraduate level to the doctoral level in healthcare, education, business, and information technology. Kennon holds a bachelor of arts in English from the University of South Carolina and lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his wife, Tracy, and their two children.

Bobby McNeil, Chapter President, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, Blacks In Technology Foundation

Bobby McNeil is a senior-level tech recruiting leader with 14 years of experience in the industry. Throughout his career, Bobby has developed a strong reputation for exceptional recruiting skills, coaching abilities, and talent placement expertise. He has a proven track record of successfully placing top talent in a range of industries, including big tech with a focus on roles in software development, cybersecurity, and research and development. In addition, he is an active leader with The Blacks In Technology Foundation, serving as chapter president of the Raleigh-Durham Region in North Carolina. He works to advance the representation of Black professionals in the tech industry through career consulting, mentorship, upskilling programs, and community and corporate partnerships.

Annette Taylor, Director, Office of Digital Equity and Literacy, North Carolina Department of Information Technology

Annette Taylor joined the North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s Division of Broadband and Digital Equity in May 2022 as the director of the Office of Digital Equity and Literacy. She is helping expand NCDIT initiatives to ensure all North Carolinians have equitable access to high-speed internet and digital literacy resources. Annette has more than 25 years of community service and civic engagement in both public and private sector roles and in the philanthropic arena, directing resources to organizations across North Carolina.

Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, Senior Fellow, National Skills Coalition

Amanda Bergson-Shilcock is a senior fellow at National Skills Coalition where she leads the organization’s work on adult education and workforce policies. She has worked with state and federal policymakers and skills advocates to develop policy solutions that address challenges facing adult learners and jobseekers, including immigrant workers. Her policy expertise, insights, and commentary have been cited and published in local and national media outlets, including Time, Fortune, BBC News, Inside Higher Ed, Politico, Business Insider, the Wall Street Journal, HR Dive, and many others. Before joining NSC in 2015, she served as vice president of Policy and Evaluation at the nonprofit Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians in Philadelphia. She also served as policy and communications director for IMPRINT, a national coalition of nonprofit organizations focusing on the integration of immigrant professionals.

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^1,2 Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, Roderick Taylor, and Nye Hodge, "Closing the Digital Skill Divide" (National Skills Coalition, February 6, 2023),https://nationalskillscoalition.org/resource/publications/closing-the-digital-skill-divide/.

³ "Internet for All," accessed July 7, 2023, https://www.internetforall.gov/.

The comments included are made by Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity staff member Nye Hodge along with our panelists and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta or the Federal Reserve System.

How do adults with low literacy acquire digital skills? Is there a wider gap for people with low literacy rates in acquiring digital skills?

Bergson-Shilcock: Yes, if your reading skills are not as strong, often your digital skills are not as strong. Providers like nonprofits, community colleges, or others that offer GED and ESL classes are often a good place for people to develop both of those skills in concert. They’re building traditional literacy skills while they’re building digital literacy skills. Unequivocally, there are people that need to build both, and the adult education system can be a partner in helping to support that. I’ve been doing a lot of work with adult education providers and advocates to make sure that they’re at the table in the state digital equity planning process.

The other piece of the puzzle is that sometimes people do have strong digital literacy skills, but we don’t have a good mechanism to capture them. Perhaps they don’t read well in English or English is not their first language, but they’re using their cell phone in creative ways.

I’ll tell a very quick story to illustrate my point. When I worked for a community-based organization in Philadelphia, we worked with a West African street vendor who sold handbags, scarves, and other accessories. He spoke either Fulani or Wolof and French and a tiny bit of English. He didn’t have very much formal education so he couldn’t read or write very well in any language. This was about 10 years ago when smartphones were just starting to become popular. He would get his customers’ phone numbers and text them pictures when he had new merchandise coming in as a marketing tool. On paper, this person probably would have failed a digital skills test because he couldn’t read or write in English. However, he was successfully using digital skills as an entrepreneur to keep his business growing and thriving.

I do think that one of the areas of opportunity we have with this new federal funding is to think more broadly and holistically about how we capture the wisdom, talent, and expertise that standardized tests don’t accurately capture.

Are there any states that have that require digital skills training as a graduation requirement, perhaps at the high school level maybe even at the college level?

Bergson-Shilcock: Microsoft has been advocating in several states for computer science class requirement for high school graduation. There are a number of states that now require you to have taken a computer science class. However, that’s not synonymous with digital skills. K-12 education in the US is very decentralized, so many things are mandated at the local level and cannot be mandated at the state level.

I think the big takeaway here is that whatever level of government, education, or workforce you are in, there is an opportunity for you to weave in digital skills. For example, career technical education, what we used to call vocational education, is often a two-year program at the high school level followed by two years at the community college level. There is no reason that digital skills shouldn’t be woven into any career tech, whether that’s career tech, HVAC technician training, culinary arts, phlebotomy, you name it. Mandating digital skills as a condition of graduation is certainly one way to think about the policy lever, but I would encourage us to think beyond just a state mandate, particularly if we’re if we’re thinking about youth and young adults whose lives are so influenced by local policy as well as state and federal policy.

Taylor: In North Carolina, it’s expected that all high school students graduate with a financial literacy course. That’s an opportunity to weave in digital skills since we operate in a digital economy. Even in the banking system, you need some digital skills to operate financial systems effectively with mobile and online banking, CashApp, and Venmo. Participating in the gig economy requires digital skills.

Harrison: Going along with the theme of private partnership and industry investment in workforce development and digital skills, it’s nonnegotiable to have them at the table. From a private enterprise perspective, what is a company? It’s a collection of people to work, and without those people the work doesn’t get done and the companies don’t exist. It’s imperative for firms like Revature and others like Google, which has a curriculum for people to explore different digital skill pathways, whether that’s tech-heavy, coding, or no coding. They are working with a variety of cities and their public school systems to give juniors and seniors the opportunity to explore digital skills specifically for tech workforce development for free with no commitment-just trying to grow the pie. We have to go back further to seventh, eighth grade or even further to empower more people to not think of jobs that require digital skills as something that’s out of their reach. It’s really important that the entire ecosystem is aligned and investing.

Hodge: When 92 percent of jobs require digital skills, they’re ubiquitous across the labor market. Amanda made a great point that computer science is not synonymous with digital literacy. Digital literacy in the job market is being able to use Microsoft Word, to use Excel to create a report that that’s fitting. For example, I spoke to an HR director the other day at a company that upgraded all of their sales material to iPads, only to find out that their sales staff didn’t know how to use the iPads—basic things like connecting to Wi-Fi, troubleshooting the Wi-Fi, connecting to the hotspot. Sometimes folks assume that we mean coding and artificial intelligence when we talk about digital skills, but it really comes down to the basics.

Amanda, can you share another example of a company that transitioned over to a digital platform only to find out that their employees weren’t ready for the change?

Bergson-Shilcock: I’ve got a couple examples. I spoke to a Fortune 100 company with 120,000 frontline employees across the United States in at least 11 states. They went to switch from paper paychecks to electronic payroll, which was a decision made at the C-Suite level. After the switch, they realized that a lot of the frontline workforce, either because of traditional literacy skills or lack of English language skills, was not able to log into the payroll app. I was asked, "Have you ever tried to teach someone that doesn’t speak English what two-factor authentication is?" Of course, I wouldn’t know where to begin explaining that to someone who only speaks another language. This is a case where a company made a decision around operational efficiency that didn’t work in practice. Another example comes from the transportation industry. The company knew that all of their truck drivers used smartphones, so the company wanted drivers to start logging their federally mandated hours and weigh station stops on their smartphones. They soon discovered that supervisors were spending hours on the phone with drivers in the field troubleshooting.

It’s not that people aren’t capable of learning, it’s that most humans are just-in-time learners and social learners. Just-in-time learners means that we learn at the moment we think we’re going to need the skill. Most humans also are social learners and learn in community-we learn in conversations, at the elbow with other humans, in dialogue, in community and in relationship-very few people learn from an online video or an isolated worksheet. A lot of how companies think about digital upskilling ties into how intentional they are about learning and development more broadly. Any company can buy an off-the-shelf software, but that doesn’t mean people will use it or will learn anything from it. When we see public or private agencies doing this well, they are taking into account andragogy-how you teach adults. The main difference between adults and children is that they can get up and leave if they don’t like what you’re doing. It’s important to think about how people learn and how to design ways to learn digital skills that are consistent with what we know about how people learn and that use effective methods.

What are the top 10 most in demand digital skills?

Hodge: Amanda, Rodrick, and I analyzed 15,000 unique skills in 2021 for the Digital Skill Divide report. What we found is that Microsoft Excel was the top requested "definitely digital skill" followed by the rest of the Microsoft Office suite, digital literacy, data entry, typing, SQL, software development, social media, and Python.

Bobby, based on your experience working with clients, please speak to the personal economic benefits for individuals, especially women and people of color, when they have digital literacy and the right digital skills-skills that can land them not only higher paying jobs, but jobs that also often offer more job security.

McNeil: The Blacks in Technology Foundation is all about closing the divide between underrepresented people and opportunities in the tech industry. One of the key things we offer to our members is access to various certifications and bootcamps, including CompTIA, Google, and Microsoft, for little to no cost. We’ve found that only 3 percent of Black people are represented in the top 75 Silicon Valley firms. From an economic standpoint, you need these digital skills to be an entrepreneur—to create marketing materials and sales materials. These skills are essential to starting a business. A lot of our members are tech founders in addition to technologists. What I’ve seen in my work as a technical recruiter is that there are a lot of people with that entrepreneurial mindset. It’s also important to talk about access to technology, the digital divide, and access to broadband to learn these skills, participate in a hybrid or virtual workforce, or start a new business from home.

What does the data say about digital skills in public health and health care industries?

Hodge: We looked at 7.5 million jobs in the health care and social assistance industries. We found that 2.5 million require digital skills and about another 3 million require likely digital skills. In talking to nurses, we learned that a lot of their jobs are now digital—charting patients electronically, tracking patient outcomes digitally, even ordering and dispensing medications. Digital skills truly are pervasive across all industries. See Closing the Digital Skill Divide and the New Landscape of Digital Literacy reports for additional information.

Is artificial intelligence going to be a bad thing or a good thing for jobs?

Hodge: I did my graduate thesis for my master’s degree on AI. What the data revealed is that when you have the right skills, training, and education, there is no net negative effect on employment due to the proliferation of AI or other means of digitalization. It comes down to digital literacy. You can’t stop progress. The world is going to become more automated, and AI will be a part of our everyday lives. To stabilize employment, we need to make sure that people have digital skills. During the industrial revolution, the workforce had to adapt to new means of production. This is no different.

McNeil: We are no longer in the industrial age. We are in the digital age. I used to recruit a lot of mechanical engineers. As automation and robotics became prevalent, those who advanced in their careers understood how to leverage the new technology to increase efficiency. Those who participated in that upskilling and training could ask for higher wages because they could work with those technologies.

AI needs to be viewed as an efficiency tool as opposed to something that can replace your job. You’re seeing new positions created as a result of AI, too, directors of AI within companies. AI can help automate some administrative tasks. Ultimately, I think AI is going to end up being a skill set—like leveraging Notion AI or Beautiful.ai that can help you make a PowerPoint presentation. We all have to be responsible with technological innovation. It’s critical we don’t use it for malice. As long as we’re responsible in how we distribute and use AI, it can be a tool for the future.

Bergson-Shilcock: AI is going to change how we get our jobs and how we do our jobs. Our mental models of the world haven’t caught up with AI. I’ve seen stories recently of people who are hiring PR or communications staff that are recommending using AI to write blog posts. However, the supervisor knows not to do that because ChatGPT will hallucinate facts if it doesn’t know the answer. If we’re a health care website and we post incorrect health care information, it could endanger lives. That’s an example of where our mental models of the world haven’t caught up. People have a baseline understanding of how they think AI functions that could be missing some important pieces.

The other piece is the canaries in the coal mine—those that have been warning us about how technology is sometimes weaponized against other community members. If AI is used on my car insurance and reports that I’m more likely to be a fraud risk, I might not know that I am being stereotyped based on my zip code, earnings, occupation, marital status, or other factor. When we think about AI in the workplace and how it’s used, we need to think about updating our mental models of the world to understand what AI is and is not capable of. We also need to think about updating our public policy framework to update those guardrails, because we can’t rely on the goodwill of people to keep AI from being weaponized. We need policies in place to create that.

Taylor: North Carolina has been ranked a top state to work to live, work, educate, and play. However, I would be remiss if I did not highlight the need for cybersecurity. We are a strong advocate for progress and for all our residents to thrive. However, when more people are online, are using telemedicine, there are more people susceptible to the bad actors who are using technology to exploit. We expect grantees and those benefitting from the funds we have discussed to consider a cybersecurity course and advocate for businesses to take the issue seriously.

Harrison: The inputs to the equation are changing and have already changed. There’s a huge opportunity for good. We have to think holistically about how this will affect our society.

If you were to suggest digital literacy training for a beginner, would you suggest learning proficiency in one skill, like Excel, for instance, or basic familiarity with the most in-demand skills?

Bergson-Shilcock: In general, helping people develop a sense of self-efficacy and digital resilience is the most useful. There are a variety of tools that can support building a strong base of foundational digital skills, such as the Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment. It is freely available online for individuals to test their own foundational digital skills.

How are the federal digital equity funds distributed at the state level?

Bergson-Shilcock: Formula funding is distributed by a state agency that is selected by the governor in each state. Often, but not always, this is the state broadband office. In contrast, the federal competitive grant funding is being distributed by the US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Visit InternetforAll.gov to sign up for their newsletter. Funding announcements will happen in the first half of 2024.

Are there opportunities to gain digital skills we can share for the masses?

Bergson-Shilcock: For more advanced skills, many public libraries have subscriptions to online learning platforms such as Coursera, Google Career Certificates, or LinkedIn Learning that can enable people to test their skills. Organizations such as Goodwill are also partnering with digital skills providers.