{"id":51111,"date":"2025-07-31T22:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T22:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/51111\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T22:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T22:56:07","slug":"the-past-present-and-future-of-labor-in-the-us-uc-irvine-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/51111\/","title":{"rendered":"The past, present and future of labor in the US \u2013 UC Irvine News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a> released on July 29, 2025, showed 7.44 million jobs open in the United States at the end of June, a decrease from May\u2019s number of 7.71 million, the highest number of job openings since November 2024.<\/p>\n

The lingering effects of the 11 interest rate hikes in 2022 and 2023 to combat inflation are one factor creating momentum changes in the U.S. job market. Another is the uncertainty resulting from the trade wars brought on after the 2025 change in presidential administration.<\/p>\n

Some of the many diverse elements affecting the American labor market include automation, artificial intelligence, energy transition and, more recently, the deportation of laborers in various fields. Other important talking points around employment include the future of wages, benefits, workers\u2019 rights and unions. Virginia Parks<\/a>, UC Irvine professor of urban planning and public policy, will address each of these topics in this episode of The UC Irvine Podcast. She\u2019ll also give advice to young people making the daunting decision about what they should do for a living \u2013 and share how the UC Irvine Labor Center<\/a> can help.<\/p>\n

\u201cConfliction & Catharsis,\u201d the music for this episode, was provided by Asher Fulero, via the audio library in YouTube Studio. To get the latest episodes of The UC Irvine Podcast delivered automatically, subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> or Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

The UC Irvine Podcast \/ Cara Capuano:<\/p>\n

From the University of California, Irvine, I\u2019m Cara Capuano. Thank you for listening to The UC Irvine Podcast. Our guest today is Virginia Parks, UC Irvine professor of urban planning and public policy. Her research interests include labor and employment, racial and gender inequality, urban politics and policy, and local economic development. Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today, Professor Parks.<\/p>\n

Virginia Parks:<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

Our topic today is labor \u2013 and there are many different directions that we can take our conversation \u2013 but I want to start with your background because I find it rather fascinating. You were a dual major in history and humanities at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Then you moved into a master\u2019s in urban planning at UCLA and ended up with a Ph.D. in geography, also at UCLA. That\u2019s what some might call an \u201cuntraditional\u201d academic journey \u2013 certainly, one with a few different disciplines and turns along the way. How would you describe the path to the work that you\u2019re doing today?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

The through line in that journey is \u201cplace.\u201d So, place has always been very important to me. I grew up in a very small town in rural Colorado, on the Great Plains, and \u201cplace\u201d is around all of us, but you\u2019re very much aware of your place and how far away you are from everything.<\/p>\n

And so, when I was at CU Boulder, one, I was the recipient of a very special scholarship in Colorado called the \u201cBoettcher Foundation Scholarship.\u201d So, 40 seniors in high school every year get a full ride plus stipend to any Colorado University of their choice. And it\u2019s just a really wonderful foundation and a tradition that continues. So, that was an easy decision, and I was on my way to CU Boulder. And I majored in history and my specialty was the history of the American West because this is where I was raised.<\/p>\n

And I was there at a really wonderful moment where Patty Limerick had joined the faculty in the Department of History. And she was maybe not the first, but one of the first very important voices to say, \u201cThe American West is a very complicated place.\u201d It\u2019s not just cowboys and Indians. Right? It has this very rich tradition of migration of different peoples. It also has a very special environment. And that relationship between people and the environment was always a through line in that program.<\/p>\n

And so, that\u2019s the through line in my own journey. I\u2019ve always been very interested in place and people in those places. That led me to urban planning because of my interest in the history of the American West. Los Angeles was this place that I knew very little about. My aunt and uncle lived in Orange County, actually Buena Park, so I had spent summers visiting Knott\u2019s Berry Farm. But LA was always this unknown kind of mystical place. And what I learned in this program was how important cities were \u2013 as somebody who really had never lived in a city. And that was my draw to urban planning and UCLA. And in fact, I would say urban planning is simply applied geography. And I wanted more about the place, and that\u2019s how I ended up as a Ph.D. in geography.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

But now labor.<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Well, because most all of us have to work. And so, if you\u2019re interested in people and place, what are people doing in those places? Well, most of the time we\u2019re working. And so, that has always been something that\u2019s very fascinating to me. And in fact, was introduced to me in this history program. A professor named Yvette Huginnie \u2013 she was specialized in labor and also, she specialized in looking at race and gender in the American West. And so that was the first moment that I was really turned on to this question of, \u201cOh, what do we do to support ourselves? How do people make a living?\u201d And that was one of the ways in which I came to my interest in labor.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

You recently co-authored a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about the potential closure of a gas refinery in the Bay Area and what that demonstrates about California\u2019s strategy for energy transition. What does that work reveal?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Again, the importance of place and people and how we make our livelihoods. So, this is all work that I\u2019ve been doing in Contra Costa County, which is in the East Bay. And for over a hundred years, it has been a place where we have refined oil into gasoline. And so those refineries have been very important as places of, you know, economic security, survival, jobs. They are longstanding union jobs. So, these are very good jobs that people\u2026 they can afford to buy a house in the East Bay, they can raise their families. They can have a good life. So, that is something that any place has though, right? When you look and you ask, \u201cWhat do people do here?\u201d And I\u2019m trained as an economic geographer \u2013 this is one of the first questions we ask. This, though, has become a very special place for me in thinking about, \u201cWhat does it mean though, when those jobs disappear?\u201d<\/p>\n

Climate change is real. It is something that we must grapple with. And one of the major contributors to climate change is the burning of fossil fuels. As we then move to a clean energy, as we transition to a clean energy economy, what does it mean for those places and people in those places?<\/p>\n

So, this is work that comes out of a coalition of actors and organizations involving both labor organizations, environmental organizations, and environmental justice organizations. So, those are the folks who live in what get called \u201cfenceline communities.\u201d They live right up against the refineries and have had to suffer for decades, right? The pollutants that these refineries put out into the air. So, I think it\u2019s a very exciting coalition of partners that you wouldn\u2019t always expect to be working side by side, but they all share a commitment to place and a commitment to being able to see future generations continue to live in Contra Costa County. And so, these are these questions, right, of what do we do?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll just add, I think that we\u2019re in a very\u2026 this is an incredible opportunity. We know this transition is coming. We can plan for this transition and therefore we can plan for what comes next, for what people do next to support themselves economically. And we can plan what that means for the environment and what that means for local communities. So, I find it to be, you know, an incredibly challenging question up against an existential threat of climate change. And yet it\u2019s incredibly exciting that we can really make a decision that serves everyone\u2019s interests. And California can be a leader in that.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hopefulness and an optimism as pertains to that field of energy transition that might not exist in others. And that\u2019s just one field in the vast topic of labor and employment. Another topic that\u2019s heavily featured in the news right now regarding labor has to do with the crackdown on immigrants since the change in presidential administration and the subsequent deportation of laborers who work in a variety of fields. What specific fields in the labor market are being most affected by this ongoing dynamic situation?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

So, I have studied immigrants in the labor force, and we all see it. We talk about immigrant niches \u2013 particular sectors in the economy where immigrants are overrepresented. You know, as well as I do what some of these industries are \u2013 hospitality, landscaping, farming \u2013 but we have a very long history, particularly in California but really across the United States, of migration and immigration. So, we are seeing immigrants throughout the economy and these crackdowns are and will continue to have an economic effect. When people are fearful of showing up for work, you will see an economic slowdown. And that is what we\u2019re seeing in Southern California, in Los Angeles especially.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

When you think about what that looks like for the person at home who\u2019s not necessarily being directly impacted \u2013 haven\u2019t lost a family member or a friend \u2013 but it still impacts them economically. How?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Prices at restaurants will probably go up. You\u2019re definitely going to see this in food prices. I\u2019m now paraphrasing an economist who\u2019s looked at this work, but in her words, evolution has done a very good job of creating hunters and gatherers. We\u2019re very good at gathering. So, a human being is one of the most effective technologies in picking fruits and vegetables. When we don\u2019t have people to do that, they will rot on the vine, and you will see an increase in prices.<\/p>\n

Any sort of service industry, you will see an increase in price. As people don\u2019t show up to work, are fearful to show up for work, you will see a slowdown, or employers will need to try and entice new workers in at higher wages, but those will have to be much higher wages.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve talked a lot about the economy of it, but what else does the loss of jobs in these industries mean, more for the workers and their communities?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Devastating for workers and their communities, particularly when \u2013 again, this is my field of expertise \u2013 when you look at residential patterns, you have immigrant communities, you have neighborhoods that have concentrations of immigrants. Those neighborhoods are going to be impacted quite heavily. It will have a devastating impact in these communities. People won\u2019t be able to pay the rent. They\u2019re not going to be able to put food on the table. They\u2019re fearful of going out and living their lives. So, this is\u2026 it\u2019s an interesting question right now of what this will mean as it continues, which it looks like it will, given the new funding for the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

Two other topics that we hear a lot about regarding how they\u2019re going to impact labor and employment: automation and artificial intelligence. What have we already seen in those rather related spheres and what\u2019s on the horizon as they continue to develop?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a great question. I wish I had a crystal ball. I don\u2019t. We are seeing some interesting and divergent research coming out on the impact of AI, but I think these are very particular fields too. Coding, for instance. Coders will be impacted. Questions there around the research: will it impact younger coders or older coders? Older, more experienced workers make more, so you would think, well, that\u2019s a quick substitution of technology for labor. On the other hand, you could argue, which some of this research does, that they are very efficient at managing teams. So, you might want to keep those older, more experienced workers and not hire the new workers. But again, we have very good high quality research that shows both outcomes. So, I think we really don\u2019t know yet.<\/p>\n

I think also we need to be very careful about the extent to which we might see the impact of AI. Coding\u2026 I think anybody on the street could say, \u201cOh yes, I can see how AI would substitute for a coder.\u201d But what about your job? You generate new content, right? You talk with people. You\u2019re able to discern and analyze and innovate. These are things that AI can\u2019t do. It\u2019s not generative. So much of our economy as a service economy. We\u2019ve already seen much of that automated. What\u2019s left, though, is those important jobs \u2013 the face to face.<\/p>\n

My daughter, she broke her ankle several weeks ago. This morning, she had an appointment with a physical therapist. I don\u2019t see AI replacing that. And there\u2019s nothing like visiting a PT in person. Yes, she can watch her little videos at home, but being in time face-to-face with that expert is priceless.<\/p>\n

She then went to get an x-ray. Somebody has to read that X-ray, right? They have to interpret that x-ray. And then she met with the orthopedic surgeon. That\u2019s somebody who then analyzes all of that information and applies it to a very specific case: my daughter. And quite frankly, I want a person to do that.<\/p>\n

We still are going to want human beings to do work and to do jobs because we want to engage with one another. So I\u2019m not sure what we\u2019re going to see, but I do think that we need to be cautious about embracing these overgeneralized outcomes when we think about AI.<\/p>\n

Automation? We\u2019ve always had automation, and we always innovate and find new industries and new jobs to create. So, I\u2019m not as worried about automation, quite frankly.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve given me less worry about artificial intelligence because \u2013 to your point \u2013 as a content creator, I can tell the difference of something that a human generated versus right now what we\u2019re seeing from what they call \u201cgenerative AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wages, benefits, worker rights, the future of unions, these are also major talking points in the world of labor. Let\u2019s kind of go topic by topic. What can you share on where wages are heading?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m going to connect everything that you just listed.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

Yes, please.<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Wages and unions are tightly connected and importantly connected. There\u2019s a robust and longstanding empirical record showing that union jobs pay more than non-union jobs. Even jobs that aren\u2019t union but are in sectors with labor representation benefit. We call that \u201cthe union spillover effect.\u201d So, wages and union representation are very importantly connected in the United States.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, we have very low union density, or the number of workers who are covered by a union contract. It\u2019s in the single digits in the private sector. So, that\u2019s where you have a case of workers are much more exposed to direct market pressures or to whims of employers. I\u2019m not sure, but the evidence so far has not been good. In the recovery from the Great Recession, we saw the depletion of middle-paying jobs, what we consider sort of middle class jobs. And so, a researcher at Berkeley coined this term, the \u201clow wage recovery.\u201d Yes, the economy recovered, but it recovered on the backs of workers.<\/p>\n

So, what we saw was a huge increase in the number of low wage jobs, many fewer jobs paying in that middle range, and then you had very high-paying jobs. So that is part of the very complicated story of economic inequality in the United States. If that trend continues, it\u2019s going to be very problematic, I think.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be problematic for workers and their families. But I also think it will be problematic socially. People will have less; they will struggle more. We will see the exacerbation of problems now, like homelessness, food insecurity, people going without health insurance and health coverage.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to have to ask ourselves some questions as a society: what kind of economy do we want? And what kind of economy do we want to serve the kind of society that we want?<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

What about benefits? There\u2019s been a big change in that.<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Very big. And, I think, to the worse. We\u2019re seeing fewer benefit packages to workers. Workers have made the choice of taking jobs at lower pay, but good benefits. Now we\u2019re starting to see that\u2019s becoming less and less of an option. I\u2019m not able to trade off wages for benefits. Again, the question will be, \u201cHow are we going to step in?\u201d Because we are human, right? We need healthcare. We need to put a roof over our head. We need to put food on the table. If we can\u2019t do that through work, we\u2019re going to have to think about other ways to do it.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

The final one we haven\u2019t touched on yet is just workers\u2019 rights. And we\u2019ve talked about how wages are being potentially threatened. Benefits are being threatened. Unions are decreasing. And then you think, well, what about workers\u2019 rights?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Well, again, workers\u2019 rights and unions go hand in hand. Unions are the collective representation of workers and the collective voice of workers to demand rights on the job.<\/p>\n

I think people tend to only think of this in terms of wages, but this has become especially clear for me in this research that I\u2019ve been doing in the refining sector over the last several years.<\/p>\n

I did a survey of laid-off refinery workers a few years back. And I was surprised. The number one issue that workers stated as what they wanted in a new job that they had lost at their old job was safety. So, wages were very important. They came in, you know, right after safety. But these are workers who have worked in very hazardous conditions for decades with their lives literally on the line. And so, they understood, in a way that many of us don\u2019t, how important having a voice at work and having a right to a safe workplace is.<\/p>\n

So, these are the types of things that we need to remember are folded into worker rights. It\u2019s not just about wages; it\u2019s about a safe working environment. It\u2019s about a fair working environment. It\u2019s about a respectful working environment. And these are things that workers\u2019 rights provide us with is the ability to demand those safe and respectful working conditions.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

And safe looks like a lot of different things.<\/p>\n

You were part of a faculty leadership team that helped establish the UC Irvine Labor Center in early 2023. Its mission is to build the power of the working people in Orange County and beyond by promoting, defending and expanding workers\u2019 rights. All nine of the UC universities that serve undergraduate students now have a labor center affiliated with their campus. What did the genesis of creating this network look like for your team?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Incredibly exciting! And this is something that I can\u2019t take credit for. This was really an effort that was spearheaded by the three extant labor centers at the time: UC Berkeley, UCLA and then UC Merced.<\/p>\n

UCLA and UC Berkeley go back to 1964 and even have their roots in the 1930s with the creation of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.<\/p>\n

UC Merced established their labor center about five or six years ago. It was their vision of what would it look like if we had labor centers at every university campus. And part of that vision was: we all work, and we want to make sure that students are exposed to this idea that you probably want to graduate with a degree from one of these institutions and get a job.<\/p>\n

What will that mean? What kinds of jobs are out there? What kinds of rights do you have? How do you think about these questions and issues?<\/p>\n

So, part of having labor centers on campus is about bringing visibility to issues of work and workers and the labor movement. It means creating the opportunity, like offering an \u201cIntroduction to Labor Studies\u201d course, which I teach now. It\u2019s very exciting \u2013 very high demand for that course. And it\u2019s simply exposing students to these ideas that the economy is yes, about employers and capital, but it\u2019s also about workers and the energy and imagination and innovation and hard work that they bring to building our economy as well.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

And to your point, it\u2019s where a lot of us spend a lot of our time. This is the perfect transition into talking about students. As today\u2019s UC Irvine students try to set a course for their futures, they\u2019re not only choosing a primary path, they\u2019re also being bombarded \u2013 as I\u2019ve seen \u2013 with concepts of entrepreneurship, the gig economy, finding side hustles to support that primary source of income. What advice would you give to someone who\u2019s trying to make that major decision about what they should do for a living?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still a romantic. Do what you love and always do the best that you can at whatever you\u2019re doing at the time.<\/p>\n

Be curious. Perhaps \u2013 this is to go back to the beginning of this podcast \u2013\u00a0yes, I have a somewhat circuitous route into my job, but it\u2019s really about being curious and always about doing the best that I could at whatever was in front of me. That\u2019s when opportunity finds you.<\/p>\n

I may be a Gen Xer on this one: I do think it\u2019s important to concentrate on something. You want depth as well as breadth. I have a son in university right now and I have a teenage daughter. I am concerned about the distractions, about this message that you\u2019re going to need to do five different things at once. It also can mean you never do any of those things well. And I think to have a career or to be able to endure the decades of work ahead of you, you need to have some enjoyment and fulfillment. And you get that by doing things that you\u2019re good at. But you need to hone those skills, develop those interests, and I think ultimately that will best position you for a successful career and outcome later in life.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

Sage advice. What would you tell a student today who is interested in urban planning and public policy? How can they find their niche in that pretty vast field?<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a vast field, and that\u2019s what I think is great about it. There\u2019s this idea that urban planning is very narrow \u2013 quite the opposite. You get exposed to all the key questions that we live every day. How did you get to work today? I\u2019m going to ask you that question.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

I drove.<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

You drove! Well, all of us get somewhere at some point. We either drive, we take the bus, we ride our bike. That\u2019s all urban planning.<\/p>\n

Where do you live? How much does it cost? Are you exposed to pollutants or not? Are there parks nearby?<\/p>\n

But there are many other questions as well. What is happening in the local economy? These are the sorts of questions that I work on. How do different partnerships come together? What does it look like to have local government working with the private sector, working with nonprofits to think about what the next clean energy economy will look like? This was work that I was doing this morning.<\/p>\n

This is all work that happens in these very broad fields of urban planning and public policy. But ultimately what connects them is: what is our collective vision? How do we come together and make decisions about what we want our coastline to look like? Do we want clean water? Do we want clean air? And that is the \u201cpublic\u201d in public policy.<\/p>\n

These are very important societal questions, and most of them cannot be answered individually. They have to be answered together. This is the basic question of what a public market is. So, these are the fun things that you can engage with.<\/p>\n

Pick your issue. Is it schooling? Is it transportation? Is it the local economy? Is it about the rights of immigrants? These are all questions that come together under the umbrellas of urban planning and public policy. But you\u2019ll get a toolkit, and you\u2019ll get introduced to particular pathways, jobs, work where you can get paid to work on these questions, to think about these issues. And I think that\u2019s terribly exciting.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

I love your energy around it. You\u2019ve got me thinking about a midlife career change. Thank you so much for the time that you spent with us today, Professor Parks.<\/p>\n

Parks:<\/p>\n

Well, thank you for the conversation.<\/p>\n

Capuano:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Cara Capuano. Thank you for listening to our conversation. For the latest UC Irvine News, please visit news.uci.edu. The UC Irvine Podcast is a production of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs at the University of California, Irvine. Please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on July 29, 2025, showed 7.44 million jobs open in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[28,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-51111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}