Exclusive: Rockefeller Foundation's $100M jobs bet targets AI disruption
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The Rockefeller Foundation is putting $100 million toward helping U.S. workers adapt to tech-driven changes to the labor market, the group exclusively told Axios.
Why it matters: AI is already reshaping jobs that local economies depend on. Whether private-sector efforts like this can scale fast enough may help determine if the technology widens or narrows American economic divides.
Driving the news: The initiative, dubbed "Big Bet on Good Jobs for America," will target communities where people are at risk of falling out of work due to AI or where there's already been significant job loss.
- The three-year, $100 million commitment is part of the foundation's aim to create 1.6 million additional "good jobs" nationally across 250 locations.
- Derek Kilmer, a former Democratic congressman from Washington who is now a senior vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, told Axios that "good jobs" include roles in sectors like health care and food and nutrition.
How it works: The Rockefeller Foundation will partner with local groups and policymakers to test new policies and programs, including job training pathways, expanded childcare access and easing credential requirements.
- The group won't pre-select the 250 locations. Instead, it plans to start with a smaller group of about 20 or 30 communities and then scale what works.
- The foundation said it will target locations based on underlying conditions, such as labor market gaps and employer demand.
- One early idea is covering upfront training costs for health care jobs, for example.
What they're saying: AI is accelerating economic disruption and sidelining working-age Americans from the labor market, Kilmer said.
- "When we are at these moments of profound economic change, societies have a choice: either to help people in places adapt or absorb the consequences for decades," he said.
- "That's why we're leaning into this now. Success [looks like] attaching more working-age Americans to good jobs."
- Kilmer said that some of the foundation's work focuses on how AI can help, for example by speeding up permit processing for affordable housing buildouts.
What we're watching: It's increasingly looking like private philanthropy and local efforts will be quicker than the federal government to jump in with funding projects to help Americans with job loss and displacement.
- Whether such efforts can keep pace with the speed and scale of labor market disruption remains an open question.
