1 . Of the endless troubles that come with being driven from one’s home country, losing educational certificates may seem small. But it isn’t. Refugees who settle in other countries often find themselves unable to continue on their previous career path due to a new set of employer standards or skills requirements. To solve this problem, the U.S. State Department is posing a solution: online learning.

The State Department will announce a partnership with an online education platform called Coursera. The platform will allow refugees worldwide to take thousands of online courses for free. “Coursera for Refugees” will be available for any non-profit group that supports refugees in any country, as well as individual refugees. They can apply for fully funded access to Coursera’s course catalog, which means they can take all of the platform’s classes and obtain professional certificates for free. The platform currently offers professor-led lectures on a broad range of topics, from data science to fashion design.

As the world migrant crisis worsens, employment is becoming a global concern. The new program aims to aid refugees by offering “important kills that will help them in the global economy,” Evan Ryan, U. S. assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, said on a press call last week. “What we don’t want to do is not act,” added Coursera chief operations officer Lila Ibrahim.

The idea isn’t without problems. For one, starting a new career path isn’t as simple as watching a few videos and obtaining an online certificate; even those looking to continue previous careers can’t simply rely on an online lecture to get them up-to-date on standards, policies, and practices. For another, most of the classes on Coursera are in English, and though there are plans to add translations, language barriers can be a big problem. Then there are the questions over the value of massive open online courses (MOOCs) themselves — both for refugees and for average learners.

But it’s still early days and there are signs of hope. In 2015, a joint study found 72% of people taking the MOOCs saw career benefits afterwards.

2 . The rise of the robots has raised the possibility of a future where there is simply less wok for humans to do. To tired office workers, a world where we all have a bit more leisure time sounds rather nice. Yet what really matters is how work will be distributed across the workforce.

The recent past shows there is no reason to believe it will be evenly (均衡地) spread. The length of the average working week in the UK has declined steadily from about 59 hours in the mid-19th century to 32 hours in 2009. But averages hide a lot.

While trends among women have been stable, there have been big shifts among men. Males in well-paid full-time employment are now working slightly longer hours on average than two decades ago. Meanwhile, men in full-time employment at the bottom of the wage ladder are working much less.

On top of that, the number of low-paid men who work part-time has increased sharply. Twenty years ago, one in 20 men with low hourly wages worked part-time; today it is one in five. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows this phenomenon is only happening among the low-paid. In better-paying jobs, part-time men are still fairly rare. Gender roles within families might tend to be similar too. Low-paid men may be choosing to shoulder more childcare responsibilities so their partners can return to work.

Yet it is clear that the distribution of work will matter to people. Britain has both overemployment and underemployment problems: official data show 3.4m people in Britain want to work more hours while 3.2m want to work few hours for less pay. The underemployed are likely to be waiters or cleaners. The overemployed are most likely to be doctors or chief executives. This indicates an economy where demand and supply of skills are out of sync.

Nobody knows for sure how the next wave of automation will shake up demand for different skills. Perhaps doctors will gain the free time they desire. Others might find themselves in greater demand. But short of us developing a much better system for training people quickly for the jobs economy needs, it seems likely that in the future—as now—there will be too much work for some, and too little for others.

3 . China’s first group of e-sports major graduates will emerge in the summer of 2021,with data showing that even though this major has been underestimated by the public, the future appears promising as there are hundreds of thousands of related jobs available.

After the Ministry of Education decided that “electronic sports and management” should be listed in colleges’ major departments in September 2016, around 30 Chinese universities kicked off their e-sports major courses in the same year, to meet the needs of the rise of e-sports related industries in the Chinese market.

“The major is designed to meet the demand,”said Zheng Duo,co-founder of Tianjin Hero Sports Management and a visiting professor from the Communication University of China(CUC).

Chinese passion for e-sports is not in doubt, with more than 18,000 e-sports companies registered as of 2021, according to corporate database Qichacha.The number of e-sports users in China reached 500 million in 2021, and the market had a value of more than 145 billion yuan as of 2020, according to Chinese consulting group iResearch. Meanwhile,the industry chain is becoming more complete.

Jobs in areas such as supervision and content production require talent and training. The number of available jobs is estimated at 500,000,and could reach 3.5 million in the next five years, according to China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Well-known universities such as CUC and the Shanghai Theatre Academy have responded to the country’s call and are preparing graduates for the e-sports market.Yet not every major graduate is qualified for the positions available, as the jobs normally require practical experience,which is something a lot of graduates lack.

Industry insiders have indicated that e-sports is an industry with rapid iteration(迭代), and some companies prefer to hire people with experience instead of spending time training recruits.

Roughly half of the graduates will enter the gaming industry, said Xiao Pi, an e-sports major graduate from CUC. “Some of the rest will pursue further studies for their master’s degree.”

“Even though e-sports majors have advantages in finding jobs, students need practical experience to better suit the different positions,” said Gu Liming, president of Perfect World Games.