Recent content from Lee Schafer

You are on your own financially in America, voters said once again
Those looking for a clear-cut election decision must have been disappointed last week, with more divided government both in Washington and here in Minnesota.Yet the…

Schafer: How major league teams can still make money in front of empty stands
Is this the year that sports moves closer to completing its transition from an in-person experience to a reality TV show?

Schafer: How to coax holdouts to don a mask? Take a page from the Spartans
When you think about the health of the group as a whole, wearing a mask makes perfect sense.

Schafer: Executive pay cuts are just a start in this gloomy time
While it's never going to be possible to see a small cut on $7 million in annual pay as painful, there is a case for these cuts as one part of an authentic leadership response to crisis.

Schafer: Here's why Minnesota doesn't have enough hospital beds
One update from state officials this week on the COVID-19 epidemic included details on facilities to house more hospital beds.So far five usable sites have…

Schafer: Abrupt closing of Edina cabinet seller shows the rough times and hard decisions ahead
There's unlikely to be severance pay, unused vacation pay and maybe even no last paycheck from CliqStudios.

Schafer: Social distancing is a matter of workplace safety, public health
It's difficult to imagine a full schedule of professional conferences, trade shows and the like resuming any time soon.

Why do so many Fortune 500 companies call Minnesota home?
The country's 16th largest metro doesn't dominate the Fortune 500 list because of its size.
Schafer: Brenton's fruitless quest for an engineer indicative of the tight workforce in robotics
Here's a company designing and building automation equipment to replace human labor with the big problem of not being able to hire enough human labor.
Schafer: Minneapolis firm's Robot Fear Index shows little fear
So why publish an indicator of how much many of us fear the future with the technology of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, robotics and virtual reality?

Schafer: Manufacturing job losses, yes, but gains for trained Minnesota workers
Here's one of the ironies in looking ahead at how the nature of work is going to change — manufacturing may actually be a bright spot.

Schafer: Automation tempers hope for new Iron Range mining jobs
The pro-mining coalition that is pushing the proposed PolyMet ÂMining project in northeastern Minnesota decided to get right to the point — by giving itself the name "Jobs for ÂMinnesotans."

Schafer: Jeremiah Program has found a way to expand nationally
Expanding outside the Twin Cities not easy for nonprofits.

Schafer: Highly skilled, highly paid Target jobs probably gone forever
Early Tuesday morning, the posts on social media and chat rooms made it clear that Target Corp. was getting on with the hard work of…