The Great Reset

A yearlong series looking at changes wrought by the Great Recession

"The Great Reset" is a yearlong, multiformat series from the Associated Press, exploring major changes wrought by the Great Recession since it began in December 2007. Mid-skill, mid-wage jobs were decimated in the recession of 2008 and 2009, and they haven't come back during the tepid economic recovery of the past 3½ years. The damage was partly cyclical as the housing bust and resulting financial crisis wiped out hundreds of thousands of jobs in construction and financial services. But a much bigger force has been at work since the recession ended: technology. Powerful software and devices are eliminating the need for many jobs throughout companies and across industries.

Global higher education shifts economy-driven

CHONGQING, China – Determined to learn their way out of the Great Recession – or eager to rise above the deprivation of developing lands – unprecedented millions of people have enrolled in colleges and universities around the world in the past five years.

Companies push ‘soft skills’ on top of technical ones

WASHINGTON – They can get good grades, earn a diploma and breeze through that campus rite of spring, the job interview. But college graduates still might not land a decent job.

The world’s top employers are pickier than ever. And they want to see more than high marks and the right degree.

They want graduates with so-called soft skills – those who can work well in teams, write and speak with clarity, adapt quickly to changes in technology and business conditions and interact with colleagues from different countries and cultures.

Four ways higher education is being ‘unbundled’

More urgent. More crowded. More expensive. Also, more flexible and accessible to millions.

That, in a nutshell, is how higher education has changed around the world in the wake of the global financial crisis that struck five years ago, and the Great Recession that followed.

Practically human: Can smart machines do your job?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Second in a three-part series on the loss of middle-class jobs in the wake of the Great Recession, and the role of technology.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Art Liscano knows he's an endangered species in the job market: He's a meter reader in Fresno, Calif. For 26 years, he's driven from house to house, checking how much electricity Pacific Gas & Electric customers have used.

Then and Now: How technology has changed jobs

Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over.

Worse, those jobs weren't just lost to China and other developing countries. No one got them. They vanished, victims of increasingly sophisticated software and machines that can do tasks faster, cheaper and often better than humans.

Vanishing jobs: An AP interactive

Historically, recessions have been followed by strong job growth, but that trend was not repeated in the last three recoveries. It has been five years since the start of the Great Recession, and nearly four years since it ended. The American workforce is still waiting for a rebound that hasn't happened.