May 26, 2026
Regardless of if Michigan should have moved faster from being a factory-based to a knowledge-based economy, AI has emerged and is changing the narrative.
To be competitive in the automation economy, the Michigan workforce must blend their unique human capabilities with technical fluency. Otherwise, the state risks producing a workforce with obsolete skills, limiting its earning potential, and continuing its downward economic trend in per capita income from 16th in 1999 to 40th in 2025. In the age of AI, we need to reimagine talent development and redefine success for the current generation of Michigan’s workforce.
Talent can make or break small businesses, and it’s been a marquee issue for state economic policy. Despite the world renown talent pipelines sitting in our backyards, labor shortages persist for Michigan’s industries. Much of that talent leaves altogether, allured by high salaries and aspirational living conditions of corporate hot spots. On top of the brain drain, Michigan businesses struggle with attrition due to aging workforces. Unemployment remains at historical lows, and competition remains fierce for dependable, coachable, and accountable employees offered enticing pay and benefits packages by international, capital-rich market players.
At the same time, Gen Z is facing an identity crisis at work. AI is radically reshaping our understanding of productivity and value. Unemployment may be at historical lows, but computer science college grads are facing increasing joblessness rates (https://cew.georgetown.edu/resource/cew-blog-major-payoff/). These hiring rollbacks are often linked to AI-related investments or strategy shifts – “it’s easiest to cut the employees you never hired.”
If their jobs won’t be replaced by AI, their productivity expectations will increase dramatically. “You won’t lose your job to AI – you’ll lose it to someone who does,” is another pervasive mantra.
For a generation that already hates capitalism more than ever before, motivation to run the rat race even faster is in short supply.
On the other hand, I’m a Gen Z that believes we all have jobs to do. I just think that we’ve been misled on what a successful career looks like.
For too long, we have associated value with income, assets, and earning potential. We have neglected to appreciate the value created by teachers, trades workers, healthcare workers, and other underpaid knowledge work. Knowledge workers have been nudged to work for massive global companies or for one of their partners in order to earn enough to justify their expensive college education.
But for me, as an elder Gen Z aka “Zoomer,” technology and education have brought the life my parents hoped for me. My path is not impossible to replicate, but it’s increasingly improbable. Corporations continue to reduce their workforces and expand their digital fiefs. For first-gen kids who might have a lot less privilege than me, they will need new kinds of opportunities to climb the socioeconomic ladder.
I grew up in a cornfield in Monroe. Regardless of the complexity of the AI economy, I still believe anyone can be successful by being decent, hard working, and honest. The challenge is that we need to provide them with the opportunities and resources they need to do the work worth doing in this new age of Michigan’s economy.
— Mikey Zlonkevicz
Mikey Z 