Every couple years, economists at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) make their best educated guess by estimating what will be the fastest- and slowest-growing jobs nationally. Their latest release looks at how employment will change across hundreds of different occupations from 2016 to 2026; for instance, they project more home health aides will service the country’s aging population, more software developers will define the country’s increasingly digital economy, and more manufacturing workers will continue to disappear.

Talent shortages for roles such as electricians, machinists, welders, PLC technicians, mechanics, construction tradespersons, and engineers will persist for the foreseeable future. While this lack of skilled talent is one of the biggest challenges manufacturers face today, there are ways to get a jump on filling these difficult roles

Mitchell supplies parts and wreath rings to companies throughout North America and Europe, and is a preferred parts supplier to furniture, window and computer manufacturers. Mitchell CEO Tim Zimmerman said recently that the company was able to reshore a handle sub-assembly product back to the U.S. last year, offering both increased production and significant cost savings to the client.

Increasingly across the nation, water concerns are bubbling up, affecting millions in their wake. The political ramifications of water were amplified during the North Dakota Access pipeline protests of last year, in which protesters coined the phrase “Water is life.”

• Use Industry 4.0 to accelerate operational improvements.  
• Integrate new and existing capabilities and technologies.
• Manage information architecture as a critical enabler.
• Thoughtfully design the transformation roadmap.
• Approach Industry 4.0 as a change management project.

As the three countries move through their last two rounds of 2017 talks in Mexico City and Washington, DC, the differences in negotiating positions remain wide.

The biggest market consideration in this bustling mini-metropolis was how to repurpose the vacant parking garages when autonomous vehicles become imbedded in our daily lives.

“The U.S. is seen throughout the world as a great place for manufacturing," said Stephen Gray. "We have incredible competitive advantages, and I think the tax reform package will actually help us."

The number of electric cooperatives beginning to offer fiber optic broadband service to their members has surged in recent years.

The idea — far grander than the money itself, which is only $150 million to start, pocket money for most of the investors — was to assemble a dream team and create a network effect for entrepreneurs in the middle of the country to align with the biggest names in business.

Smaller metro areas dominated this list. The average population across our top 10 is about 300,000. But if you discount Greenville, North Carolina and Ogden-Clearfield, Utah that figure drops in half to 150,000. The largest metro area in our top 25 is Louisville-Jefferson, Kentucky-Indiana, which has 1.2 million residents.

The largest metro areas and those with highly educated workforces have rebounded well, but many other regions have struggled to recover job losses.

Virtually all of the US companies represented in our 17th semiannual Capital Confidence Barometer said they engage in regular portfolio reviews – nearly half do so annually – indicating that companies are employing every tool at their disposal, from divestment to cross-sector partnerships, to stay competitive in these relentlessly disruptive markets. Moreover, for the largest companies, M&A remains front and center: three-fourths of companies with revenue of US$5 billion or more are planning deals.

The autonomous shuttle is part of partnership between RTD, CDOT and Panasonic to help solve the region’s “last mile” commuting issues.

Last month, London mayor Sadiq Khan, joined by a trio of Google executives, broke ground on the site of Google’s new campus in the city’s King’s Cross district.

How many of your colleagues that you work with on a daily basis have a disability? Chances are it’s more than you think.

Alabama's billion-dollar auto industry is positioned for the future, its executives say. But what that future will look like continues to be a mystery.

he past decade has seen a gusher of books arguing for and detailing the supposed ascendency of dense urban cores, like the inimitable Edward Glaeser’s influential Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, and about the ‘burbs as the slums of the future, abandoned by businesses and young people, like Leigh Gallagher’s The Death of Suburbia: Where the American Dream Is Moving.

But as we show in Infinite Suburbia, the new book we co-edited, the vast majority of American economic and demographic growth continues to take place there.

Here are five ways in which the U.S. workforce has changed since the onset of the Great Recession. (It’s worth noting that, in many cases, the slump intensified or accelerated longer-term trends that already were underway. Also, in order to highlight changes, in most cases we compare the most recent available economic data points with those in December 2007, when the economy started its big slowdown.)

Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s U.S. president, is hitting the gas as the global fast-food chain works to modernize its U.S. restaurants and woo back customers who have drifted off.

The pitches have been quirky, some might even say desperate. City officials across North America are trying to get Amazon's attention in hopes that the fourth-largest company in the U.S. will build its next big tech hub in their community. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports on what they stand to gain, and pay, for the chance.

To get there, GM is lowering the costs of self-driving cars both by building out its manufacturing capabilities and supply base and finding better technology.

Site selection consultants know that economic incentives should never be the primary factor in making a site decision, but rather to bridge the gap between two or more competing locations when all other factors are similar.