Is the economy really destroying the job market?

I have to agree with Dr. Dave. The 40+ applicants who are usually better educated and have far more experience are getting "snubbed" by the younger decision makers in HR. In my experience I have acted as a business consultant for a number of housing construction companies. Many of these companies are run by lower-paid inexperienced managers (just out of college with no industry experience). It's sometimes embarrassing for me when I have to explain and interpret the basics of municipal legislation, building code and construction operations to my younger inexperienced clients.

 

I believe this downturn is a simple matter of "supply and demand" . As our population increases the demand for emplyment increases as well and as long companies are encouraged to relocate out of the country (China,Mexico) to help bolster bottom line numbers the supply of jobs are decreased.
Maybe that "giant sucking sound" is in full fury.

 

"End of Work" -- basically the end of physical labor involved in production due to the rise of automation -- is an interesting concept, and I am convinced it will happen within this century. But I don't think we're close yet, even in the U.S.

However, it's certainly time to start thinking about alternatives. Obviously, there will still be work for those who "program the robots." They potentially will have nearly all of the wealth. So how do we provide for everyone else?

A farily large number of alternatives have been developing since the beginning of the industrial revolution -- professional sports, music, movies, etc.

And even more alternatives are being developed today. For example, there thousands of people who make their living playing video games. Yep. At the lowest level are the testers who work for the video game developers. It's fairly low pay, but most of these workers are doing pretty much the same thing they would be doing if they were unemployed. Then there are the players of games like Ultima Online. Players develop characters, obtain objects, etc. and then sell them (often on Ebay.) A friend of a friend of mine made about $40K per year doing this. And then there are the pro players who play in tournaments with big prize money and often have sponsorships from the various game and equipment manufactures.

Anyway, it's all beside the point. The economy works in cycles. No matter where we are in the cycle, there are those who predict that that state will never end. It will.

 

Most of the call center jobs are moving out to third world countries for cost saving. Soon those jobs will fade from this market.

 

I seem to remember, 30 years ago, discussion of the 10 hour work week through automation. I am still waiting. If 10 hours is the standard, I've been putting in about 60 hours of overtime each week lately.

I also remember the predictions of a paperless office because of computers. Because we can print the same report 16 different ways, we do, and we make 32 copies of each.

 

I seem to remember, 30 years ago, discussion of the 10 hour work week through automation.

Every newspaper and every magazine wrote of AUTOMATION. For years that was the alarmist hot topic. Books were written and documentaries were made about AUTOMATION and how AUTOMATION would throw 1000% percent of the workforce into the streets.

Union leaders railed against AUTOMATION and politicians promised respite from AUTOMATION.

And the eggheads. Always the eggheads with their crystal balls. The eggheads with their PhDs forecasting the end of days if America did not embrace a command economy to forfend the calamity of AUTOMATION.

 

Years ago when I worked at IBM, the company had to put a spin on automation and computerization to make it seem not only benign, but beneficial too. So the party line at the time was that automation was merely processing routine tasks, thereby freeing employees to do more analytical work of greater challenge and value. Sounds almost too good to be true.

Well, if anyone had walked through an insurance company, for example, 25 years ago and then again yesterday, would he have noticed anything odd? The fact is most of the people are gone, and no, they're not all in a back room somewhere analyzing thanks to the wonders of job enrichment either. Their jobs were eliminated eons ago.

So yes, computerization and automation do eliminate jobs, and at the moment, at least, faster than new jobs can be created. I'm not a Luddite by any means. Progress is positive. But it's the misleading propaganda on some other negative outcomes that I object to, i.e., disappearing jobs and unemployment.