Paul Daniels

Job postings data have become one of the most widely used sources of real-time labor market information. Researchers, policymakers, and workforce agencies increasingly rely on them to understand employer demand for skills and develop occupational projections and taxonomies. They do so, in part, because vendors have successfully marketed them as providing pinpoint-accurate real-time data. But do those data live up to their promise? Not entirely.

I was recently invited to speak at the Washington Glass Association’s (WGA) monthly dinner meeting in Seattle. The meeting was well attended, and most guests were upbeat about business in their area. Though several officials from large companies commented that there are not many large curtainwall-type projects active in the market, public jobs and tenant improvement work were keeping them busy and quoting. This was not the first time I have been invited to present at WGA events over the years.

Over the last few months, I talked a lot about how artificial intelligence (AI) can change the way we do business. At FHC, we have focused on ways to improve operations by streamlining procedures via AI. This all sounds good on paper, but if you are not taking the concerns of your customers as part of the conversation, you may be heading for trouble. We always say that we are in business for our customers and want to do business anyway they want.