All the Lonely Interns. NewsWire

NewsWire: 7/23/22

• Summer interns are showing up at the office—only to discover that their bosses aren’t there. They’re eager to make a good impression, but remote work makes it harder for bosses to notice them. (The New York Times)
• NH: Every year, about 300,000 young people take summer internships. And many of these interns are eager to form relationships that result in full-time job offers. But in 2022, impressing higher-ups is proving difficult. Why? No one is in the office. 
• This NYT article is full of anecdotal stories about interns coping with their bosses working remotely. Many describe disappointment after a long commute only to find an empty office. Some have reported hanging out with other interns unsupervised. And others say they must rush to network on the rare day their bosses are there in person. 
• We have written several NewsWires on the benefits of remote work. (See “Americans Are Choosing to Work Remotely.”) But we have also said telecommuting is challenging for new employees who aren’t yet assimilated into a team. (See "Remote-Only Workers Report Mixed Feelings.") This is especially true for interns who only have a limited time to make an impression.  
• Unfortunately for these young adults, remote work isn't going away anytime soon. Last week, the average office occupancy in the ten largest US cities was 44.1%. Before the pandemic, it was close to 95.0%. 

Did You Know?

• Do Economists Live in Ivory Towers? It may be no surprise that Ph.D holders tend to come from more educationally advantaged backgrounds than all college graduates or the U.S. population overall. But according to a new study from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, economics is the most educationally privileged of all. In 1970, just 1 in 5 U.S.-born Ph.D. graduates in economics had a parent with a graduate degree. Today, 65% of them do. Across all Ph.D recipients, the average is 50%. Only 14% of U.S.-born economists with PhDs are first-generation college graduates, compared to 26% across all PhD fields. In part, the increase in the share of parents with graduate degrees over time simply reflects trends in higher education. But compared to all other Americans at the same age, economics Ph.D recipients are about 5x more likely to have a parent with a graduate degree. Economists, we may conclude, tend to be very smart and tend to be raised by very intellectually gifted parents--which perhaps explains why they have a hard time figuring out how most Americans actually think and behave.