California Executive Order Directs Businesses and State Agencies to Prepare for AI-Driven Workforce Disruption (kqed.org)
(Monday May 25, 2026 @03:34AM (EditorDavid)
from the rise-of-the-machines dept.)
- Reference: 0183383628
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/05/25/0128243/california-executive-order-directs-businesses-and-state-agencies-to-prepare-for-ai-driven-workforce-disruption
- Source link: https://www.kqed.org/news/12084655/after-meta-layoffs-newsom-signs-ai-order-to-protect-workers-and-jobs
Thursday California's governor issued an executive order "directing state agencies to prepare workers and businesses for AI-driven workforce disruption," [1]reports San Francisco's KQED . In a statement the governor said "This moment demands that we [2]reimagine the entire system — how we work, how we govern, how we prepare people for the future."
> The order mandates agencies to explore a range of policy options, including severance standards, expanded unemployment insurance, job retraining programs aimed specifically at white-collar workers, worker ownership models and a concept the governor called "universal basic capital," giving all residents a stake in assets such as corporate stocks, bonds or wealth funds...
>
> Tom Kemp, executive director of the California Privacy Protection Agency, applauded the fact that the order named data privacy as a consumer protection concern and highlighted the CPPA's automated decision-making technology regulations, which he called "the nation's most comprehensive." Others are more skeptical. "Catastrophic job loss from AI is not inevitable, it's a political choice," Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, [3]wrote in a statement . However, Gonzalez noted one area of genuine agreement: the order's emphasis on collective bargaining as a tool for protecting workers from AI displacement...
>
> According to [4]Stanford HAI's 2026 AI Index , software developers ages 22 to 25 are among those most likely to see their skills made redundant earliest. This year, U.S. employment fell nearly 20% from 2024, even as headcount for older developers continued to grow. Following the job cuts announced at Meta, a union of Alphabet workers in the U.S. and Canada released a statement that suggests Silicon Valley's own labor force may seek to organize... "It's undeniable that our whole industry is being transformed by the corporate push to adopt new AI tools," [Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009 said in a statement]. "It's hard not to feel anxiety and fear when we can see more and more tech companies cutting huge portions of their workforce both in anticipation of replacing them with AI, and to fund their multi-billion-dollar bets on AI as the future of the industry..."
>
> In February, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Gonzalez delivered what amounted to an ultimatum to Newsom: regulate AI or lose labor's support for any future presidential run. Shuler called a potential AI-driven economic collapse a coming "crisis." In August 2025, Newsom announced a [5]partnership with Google, Microsoft, IBM and Adobe to expand AI education in California schools and community colleges, a workforce preparation push that now looks like a precursor to Thursday's more sweeping order.
The article notes that after signing the bill the governor [6]shared this comment on X.com . "California will pursue new policies that make sure working Californians — not just Big Tech — benefit from the wealth and breakthroughs coming out of this space."
> Newsom telegraphed Thursday's order earlier this week, when he appeared at the Center for American Progress IDEAS Conference in Washington. "Businesses are going to make a fortune, and that's why you cannot continue to have a payroll tax system that taxes jobs and then subsidizes automation."
[1] https://www.kqed.org/news/12084655/after-meta-layoffs-newsom-signs-ai-order-to-protect-workers-and-jobs
[2] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/05/21/governor-newsom-signs-first-of-its-kind-executive-order-to-prepare-workers-and-businesses-for-potential-ai-disruption/
[3] https://calaborfed.org/press-releases/california-labor-president-lorena-gonzalez-responds-to-governors-ai-executive-order/
[4] https://www.kqed.org/news/12079472/stanford-study-ai-experts-are-optimistic-about-ai-the-rest-of-us-not-so-much
[5] https://www.kqed.org/news/12051433/california-teams-with-google-microsoft-ibm-adobe-to-prepare-students-for-ai-era
[6] https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2057507319139750057
> The order mandates agencies to explore a range of policy options, including severance standards, expanded unemployment insurance, job retraining programs aimed specifically at white-collar workers, worker ownership models and a concept the governor called "universal basic capital," giving all residents a stake in assets such as corporate stocks, bonds or wealth funds...
>
> Tom Kemp, executive director of the California Privacy Protection Agency, applauded the fact that the order named data privacy as a consumer protection concern and highlighted the CPPA's automated decision-making technology regulations, which he called "the nation's most comprehensive." Others are more skeptical. "Catastrophic job loss from AI is not inevitable, it's a political choice," Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, [3]wrote in a statement . However, Gonzalez noted one area of genuine agreement: the order's emphasis on collective bargaining as a tool for protecting workers from AI displacement...
>
> According to [4]Stanford HAI's 2026 AI Index , software developers ages 22 to 25 are among those most likely to see their skills made redundant earliest. This year, U.S. employment fell nearly 20% from 2024, even as headcount for older developers continued to grow. Following the job cuts announced at Meta, a union of Alphabet workers in the U.S. and Canada released a statement that suggests Silicon Valley's own labor force may seek to organize... "It's undeniable that our whole industry is being transformed by the corporate push to adopt new AI tools," [Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009 said in a statement]. "It's hard not to feel anxiety and fear when we can see more and more tech companies cutting huge portions of their workforce both in anticipation of replacing them with AI, and to fund their multi-billion-dollar bets on AI as the future of the industry..."
>
> In February, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Gonzalez delivered what amounted to an ultimatum to Newsom: regulate AI or lose labor's support for any future presidential run. Shuler called a potential AI-driven economic collapse a coming "crisis." In August 2025, Newsom announced a [5]partnership with Google, Microsoft, IBM and Adobe to expand AI education in California schools and community colleges, a workforce preparation push that now looks like a precursor to Thursday's more sweeping order.
The article notes that after signing the bill the governor [6]shared this comment on X.com . "California will pursue new policies that make sure working Californians — not just Big Tech — benefit from the wealth and breakthroughs coming out of this space."
> Newsom telegraphed Thursday's order earlier this week, when he appeared at the Center for American Progress IDEAS Conference in Washington. "Businesses are going to make a fortune, and that's why you cannot continue to have a payroll tax system that taxes jobs and then subsidizes automation."
[1] https://www.kqed.org/news/12084655/after-meta-layoffs-newsom-signs-ai-order-to-protect-workers-and-jobs
[2] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/05/21/governor-newsom-signs-first-of-its-kind-executive-order-to-prepare-workers-and-businesses-for-potential-ai-disruption/
[3] https://calaborfed.org/press-releases/california-labor-president-lorena-gonzalez-responds-to-governors-ai-executive-order/
[4] https://www.kqed.org/news/12079472/stanford-study-ai-experts-are-optimistic-about-ai-the-rest-of-us-not-so-much
[5] https://www.kqed.org/news/12051433/california-teams-with-google-microsoft-ibm-adobe-to-prepare-students-for-ai-era
[6] https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2057507319139750057
The Presidential Campaign (Score:2, Informative)
by locater16 ( 2326718 )
is in full swing. Give a pointless "Executive Order" over a hot button topic sure to get press coverage. Create a link in people's brains between the words "Executive Order", "California" and "Gavin Newsome". Come 2028 he'll "seem presidential" while Marco Rubio will still be "little Marco". Now excuse me while I see what words have the best payouts for Trumps next speech on Iran before I write that speech, need a second yacht.
Re:The Presidential Campaign (Score:5, Insightful)
by sinkskinkshrieks ( 6952954 )
His name is spelled "Newsom". And he is a careerist wife cheater who doesn't appear to hold any particularly strong convictions except those that blow best with the wind. These are performative executive wishes that don't do anything to stop job destruction, slipping standards of living, stem inequality, or create jobs for the zillions of people out-of-work.
Hysterical BS Exxageration (Score:1)
by not-the-shy-one ( 10503361 )
"This year, U.S. employment fell nearly 20% from 2024." Were that true, we would be living through the worst of the Great Depression era. I asked perplexity ai for comparable statistics, and it claims that it took three years of the Great Depression for US employment to contact 20%.
Re: (Score:2)
by spitzak ( 4019 )
Most likely they meant that unemployment (or something similar) increased by 20%
Re: (Score:1)
by not-the-shy-one ( 10503361 )
contract, not contact
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
Re: (Score:3)
> Have to love the left, always wanting to seize and give away someone else's stuff.
Absolutely, much better for everyone if they [1]just got rid of the peasants [existentialcomics.com]
[1] https://existentialcomics.com/comic/655
Re: (Score:2)
Did you post this also when Musk said THE EXACT SAME THING?????
Unemployed people can't buy stocks.
More seriously, both this and Musk sound like the government seizing company assets and distributing it evenly to everybody. This is basically UBI, and it is a huge tax no matter how it is collected. It may work however, needs to be investigated with some seriousness and by people without preconceived notions of what will happen.