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The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people
- geff82 11y agoIt is grim with the exception when you live in Germany or Switzerland.
- meatysnapper 11y agoHop Schweiz!!! But seriously, let's not forget about Luxembourg or Lichtenstein!
- ju-st 11y agoIt's still hard to find interesting jobs. But maybe I'm already spoiled...
- benevol 11y agoAll the Syrians in da house, let me hear you say HOOO-OOOO!
- maresca 11y agoStudent loan debt surpassed credit card and auto loan debt in the US last year. Many college grads graduate with large sums of debt and can't find relevant jobs. Since student loan debt isn't forgivable, it'll be interesting to see the effect of this over the next decade. I have a hunch that the next big market crash will be caused by student loan debt.
- hueving 11y agoStudent debt has been thought to be the next crash, but I'm not sure how unless the laws change. It's not dischargable in bankruptcy so it's not like you can walk away.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoWill living in permanent default become the new bankruptcy? Also what happens to your US student debt if you move abroad and stop paying it?
- kcole16 11y agoEventually, creditors might write it off, but the borrower would be liable if they ever return to the US. Also, given how annoying it is for international banks to work with US expats, I can't imagine they would look past that kind of dent in credit history.
- eastbayjake 11y agoStudent loan debt won't create a crash, it has just been an enormous brake on the US economy for almost a decade now and we've grown so used to its effects that we don't really notice it anymore. Imagine how many young people would start a company or take a risky-but-educational job except that they need the liquidity and stability to make a student loan payment every month? You could get living expenses close to zero by living with your parents for a while, but student loan payments require you to have some cash coming from somewhere each month.
- learc83 11y ago>You could get living expenses close to zero by living with your parents for a while, but student loan payments require you to have some cash coming from somewhere each month. Not with federal student loans. They have income based repayment plans. If you have no income, you don't pay. After 20 years the debt is forgiven.
- eastbayjake 11y agoUnfortunately the cap on maximum borrowing with federal student loans is quite low compared to the total cost of many colleges, so there's lots of private loans that come due six months after graduation and don't really care what your income level is -- they just want to be paid.
- debaserab2 11y agoDepending on the loan, student loan debt can be forgivable: https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancell...
- Domenic_S 11y agoIf you 1) have a job at a 2) qualifying employer (non-profit or government). If you have a job, you're definitely not as impacted WRT your student loans as someone without a job.
- nostromo 11y agoI agree that student loan debt seems like an asset bubble -- in that the price of an education greatly exceeds the valuation justified by the fundamentals. But I can't think of a way that the bubble could actually pop. Or what it would look like if it did. Unlike housing, you can't walk away from your education; student loans are designed to prevent debtors from ever escaping their obligations. They're also guaranteed by the federal government, which has seemingly infinite resources. Educational institutions themselves are also either private, or are state-run, both of which would shield the impacts of a collapse from the average citizen. The average citizen isn't invested in education like they were in public tech companies or housing. It's also impossible to short Harvard or the UC system. I actually think this is worse in some ways. Bubble pops are scary, but the bandaid comes off quickly. Instead I fear educational indebtedness will just be a silent vampire on our economy for decades to come.
- lisper 11y ago> But I can't think of a way that the bubble could actually pop. Or what it would look like if it did. It would look like a social movement. It would look like tens of millions of young people realizing that they have fallen under the yoke of life-long indentured servitude to the older generation, and either 1) getting organized enough to get the law changed or, 2) saying "fuck it, I've got nothing left to lose" and rioting in the streets.
- learc83 11y agoFor federal student loans, there isn't a life of indentured servitude. There are income based repayment plans that with fairly low costs per month. A single guy working at starbucks making 30k per year would only pay about $100 per month even with a 200k loan (if he had a wife and kid, he'd pay nothing). Then after 20 years the rest is forgiven.
- zardo 11y agoIn year 20 he pays income tax on the forgiven amount. He'd better be saving up for that.
- learc83 11y agoStudent loan debt isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy, but their are income based repayment plans. You can pay back either 10% of your discretionary income, for 20 years and then the remaining balanced is forgiven (if a balance remains). Discretionary income is defined as the difference between your income and 150% of the federal poverty level. If you have 200k in student loans, but only make 30k a year because you can't find a job better than starbucks, you'll only pay about $100 a month. If you have a spouse and a kid, you'll pay nothing. *note these number depend on when you borrowed. Older loans have to pay 15% for 25 years instead of 10% for 20 years.
- chimeracoder 11y ago> You can pay back either 10% of your discretionary income, for 20 years and then the remaining balanced is forgiven (if a balance remains). For federal subsidized loans, forgiveness of loans means that it comes out of taxpayer money. For people talking about student loans as a bubble and wondering when it will pop and what that will look like, this is the most likely mechanism for that to happen. This is a really serious principal-agent problem, because schools have only indirect incentives (at best) to make sure that their graduates are employed at rates which allow them to pay back those loans in full. On the other hand, the federal government is essentially incapable of denying people these loans as long as they meet the financial criteria. In that light, it's not hard to see how tuitions have spiked, and student debt along with it. Schools are essentially incentivized to take out massive loans against their students, which amounts to another source of public funding for universities.
- learc83 11y agoThere's only about a trillion dollars in Federal student loans. It's nothing compared to the real estate bubble.
- zanny 11y agoYet if you are below the poverty level (unemployed) those monthly minimums can be overwhelming.
- beamatronic 11y agos/big market crash/massive dollar devaluation
- tribune 11y agoNot to discount the severity of the student loan problem, but the market is really not large enough to cause the next big crash. For some perspective, pre-crisis mortgage debt was almost two-thirds of GDP whereas student loans are still a much smaller portion. Mortgages on hugely inflated home prices also sucked up a huge portion of incomes in 2007. Add in the systemic infection of credit default swaps and junk mortgage-backed securities on Wall Street and you had the Crash. Hopefully we'll wisen up well before student loans get to that point.
- sogen 11y agoIs this a plain in the open "ideology injection in the brain" from above (the rich) to deter emigration to better countries?
- jonathanjaeger 11y agoDisclaimer: This is purely anecdotal, and not backed by any data. I'm in my mid-twenties and just recently started interviewing people for the team I work on. It's amazing how little effort many seemingly qualified people put in to secure an entry-level job. Whether it be hustle to learn more about a business, the specifics about the company you might work at, or finding someone to give a second set of eyes on a cover letter or resume, most people really drop the ball. If job prospects are grim, you'd at least hope people would put in more effort.
- hitekker 11y agoI think fear of unemployment as a motivator (or perhaps most kinds of fears) only works in brief, dramatic, and largely unhelpful spurts. So when I look at people who are doing a shoddy job of caring about the particulars of their (potential) job, I always think "is this something that they want to do or at they they are forced to do stave off unemployment?" To respond more effectively: grim prospects only increase the pool of applicants, and decreases their average desire to do the job you ask for.
- jonathanjaeger 11y ago"To respond more effectively: grim prospects only increase the pool of applicants, and decreases their average desire to do the job you ask for." I think that's spot on.
- blakeshall 11y agoI'd be curious if you are seeing the results of 'shotgun' style job searching. Sending your resume anywhere and everywhere with the hopes of getting a callback. I imagine that would make it difficult to research every possibility.
- Domenic_S 11y agoat the interview stage?
- jonathanjaeger 11y ago
- NoGravitas 11y ago> The world needs at least 600 million new jobs in the next decade for young people Or, perhaps, the world needs to stop coupling basic human needs for subsistence and dignity to wage labour, and find some better way of doing things.
- thieving_magpie 11y agoIt's so easy! Why has no one thought of this? All we need to do is convince every government in the world to undertake dramatic changes to their economic and labor structure.
- astrodust 11y agoWe lived for at least fifty thousand years without any money at all, for around three thousand with some form of money, and the last two hundred years with the idea of hourly wages and bills and rent. It's entirely possible we'll find a better way to do this. Maybe we'll have to "undertake dramatic changes" to avoid an even bigger disaster.
- seanp2k2 11y agoWe've developed the technology to support our greed, and now that a small group of people has become infinitely more powerful, they won't be willing to cede control.
- vixen99 11y agoNot sure what you mean by greed but I hope it's not the description applied, too often exclusively, to those who want to earn more money or to keep what they have already earned - never to those wanting to take other people's money in taxes or to those wishing to live on the largesse provided by such taxation.
- lujim 11y agoI don't think of it that way. Even the most destitute person can go to the ER and get medical treatment that Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller or JP Morgan couldn't buy with their entire fortune. It's not always free, but it's available. Most people living near or above the poverty line can afford devices fit in their pocket and instantly share information with anyone on the planet. Entire ivy league university courses are instantly available for free anywhere with an internet connection. We've developed the technology that we were able to because we could. Wealth inequality sucks, minimum wage sucks, environmental pollution sucks, but we aren't doing all that bad for a bunch of apes just trying to figure things out.
- sosuke 11y agoWhat qualifies as an adult anymore? people 15 to 29 years old are at least twice as likely as adults to be unemployed 30 is adulthood in their interpretation of the data.
- viewer5 11y agoAnd 15-17 are lumped in with actual adults.
- positr0n 11y agoI have two kids and own a house but I guess I'm still 5 years away from being an adult! Unless maybe their definition of adult is 18+ and that sentence means "the 15-29 age bracket is twice as likely as 18+ to be unemployed"
- nathan_f77 11y agoHaha, I was just thinking that if I'm only 4 years away from being an adult, then that feels about right. I don't feel like an adult at all, but maybe when I'm in my 30s. Wow, I can't imagine having 2 kids or a house.
- zardo 11y agoThe traditional right of passage, your first divorce.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoI recently saw an article (don't recall where, but I think it was based on a World Bank report) that indicated that the fraction of the population aged 18-65 had peaked in 2012. That was part of the problem - more people were of working age. But demographically, that's going to be less and less true as we move forward; perhaps that will soften the conclusions of this article.
- forrestthewoods 11y agoCentral Asia and South-East Europe are lumped together? Ouch! That feels like a rather stinging critique of the European Union.
- fensterblick 11y agoAs the article highlights, the Arab revolutions were led by the youth. I wonder what, if anything, will happen in the USA when the current generation, saddled by seemingly insurmountable college debt, comes to the realization that it cannot find stable work or afford decent housing. I truly believe that moment will be an earthquake for the current political environment; what we characterize Republicans and Democrats today will dramatically change (just like it did after the Civil War and also the Civil Rights movement).
- xrange 11y ago>saddled by seemingly insurmountable college debt Does anyone know of a source for statistics on student loan debt? This site http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data ...claims that the average debt of graduating seniors is $28.4k. I'd like to see a histogram of all recent graduates and dropouts, with the bins in dollars of debt. I'd also like to see a scatter plot showing the median debt vs. debtors age (for all age groups, not just recent grads). And another scatter plot of debt vs. income.
- tdsamardzhiev 11y agoBetter think positive, guys - it's only going to get worse as you get older ;)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- peterwwillis 11y agoJob hack: open volunteer trade schools in impoverished urban areas and fund it with both government and private money and give tax incentives to those that fund them or volunteer to work there. This could be anything from computer jobs to specialized manufacturing (Foxconn-esque). Not only could this provide us with a 'cheap labor' manufacturing workforce that corporations love, tech jobs that could be done remotely would also be easy to train for, and thus our country's very limited transportation options wouldn't be such a barrier to getting work. Areas of high crime or gang violence could begin to get kids off the streets and into a stable job.
- dba7dba 11y agoWe should be honest and talk about just not creating more jobs BUT having LESS babies.
- theworstshill 11y agoWhy not the other way around - just kill everybody above a certain cutoff and feed them as soylent to the rest? They've already spent most of their productive years anyway, right? Its equally ridiculous, isn't it?
- nilkn 11y agoNo, killing people and feeding them to others is several orders of magnitude more ridiculous than simply voluntarily having fewer children.
- theworstshill 11y agoEvery developed country in the world has a negative net population growth - natural growth excluding migration. The only reason the seniors are fed, clothed and washed is a a supply train of foreign nurses and home-care aides, usually from a country such as Philippines - which has a positive population growth. The entire economic system, as it is right now - in reality, is based on positive population growth. How is decreasing the number of kids is going to help?
- chillwaves 11y agoBecause automation means less need for labor, which solves the issue of "positive population growth" -- since it's not the bodies that are providing the economic activity, its their labor. But the bodies require more and more resources that our planet is not capable of sustaining. Hence, less babies.
- lumberjack 11y agoWhy do you think that developed countries have below replacement birth rates? Many people cannot afford to raise families anymore. By afford I mean, afford to raise them to an adequate first world standard. So that's already happening.
- morgante 11y ago> people 15 to 29 years old are at least twice as likely as adults to be unemployed. Today I learned that 28-year-olds aren't adults.
- nilkn 11y agoI'm curious if that sentence is itself an explanation for the perception that a 28 year old might not be an adult. In other words, at least in American culture, adulthood is strongly tied with stable employment. If the 15 - 29 age bracket in general does not enjoy stable employment, that could itself be responsible for creating the perception that members of this bracket are not adults.
- cryoshon 11y agoAdulthood is also tied with marriage, home ownership, car ownership, child-rearing, etc... these things have been pushed back a decade or so as a result of too little money. By the standards of the 1950s, the 20-somethings of today aren't adults. That has sociological twists to it as well, of course-- but primarily economic. I suspect that people aren't actively avoiding having a house, car, wedding, or children, so much as adjusting their wants to be more in line with what is realistic-- choosing one or half of one of the above listed items.
- morgante 11y ago> Adulthood is also tied with marriage, home ownership, car ownership, child-rearing No. Just no. Those are things which some adults do, that does not mean you aren't an adult if you don't do them. Is a 40-year-old with a successful career who just never got married not an adult? Stop insulting and marginalizing people.
- cryoshon 11y agoJust reiterating the state of the status quo's expectations-- they happen to be tied to useful and measurable economic activities. I fully believe you can be an adult without any of the above.
- downandout 11y agoMost of the comments here focus on how people aren't trying hard enough to get jobs. This article indicates that the jobs don't exist and that the problem is likely to get far worse. You can try as hard as you want to get a job - if no one is hiring, you aren't going to get one. The reality is that as time goes on, the world's needs can and will be met by fewer and fewer people. This should be a good thing, but it won't work under most existing economic systems. Our entire economy has to change to accomodate the new reality that a significant percentage of the population will be unemployed.
- cryoshon 11y agoYeah, there's always some holdovers commenting from the era of easy jobs and easy money. Underemployment should be mentioned in any discussion of job difficulty; in the US, getting a job as a barista or fast food is possible, but a horrendous waste of a college education. It's really a shame that the US has decided to let its most educated generation ever suffer for its biggest strength.
- icelancer 11y ago>It's really a shame that the US has decided to let its most educated generation ever suffer for its biggest strength. This is by design, of course. The more "educated" the society is, the more "menial" jobs they have to take. Wide-swath prescription of college degrees can't solve that problem (in fact, it creates it).
- happyscrappy 11y agoPlumbers and electricians make as much if not more than 'educated' jobs and are impossible to outsource. Education is great and today you can learn virtually anything with an internet connection but family expectations mean you are expected to go the college. 'The government is oppressing me with student loans' is pretty weak sauce and is par for the course lack of personal responsibility. Don't run up debt to major in art history.
- Azew 11y ago
- ausjke 11y agoI don't know how this is going to work, I actually think the root-cause of mid-east crisis is more related to youth-jobless. Young people without job will lead to bad things, in the meantime the technology/AI/robotic-factory is making more people "unneeded", will it either be a utopia-coming-true or a revolution?
- theworstshill 11y agoAs difficult as it would be to find money for it - I would propose a one time entrepreneurship grant to all college graduates equal to an average yearly salary in the profession (this is an approximation and experts should figure out what variables should adjust for best amount). That would allow several things to happen: 1. New graduates with a strong drive for entrepreneurship can start working on their ideas right away and do not have to spent several years working for corporations, picking up anti-patterns. 2. New graduates who are unable to find professional work can have a cushion while they search, and can potentially become lesser partners to people in the first category. Jobs and careers are created by businesses, so the more small-medium size businesses there are, places that are still flexible in their mindset - the more work there will be.
- fredgrott 11y agoThe reality is with $31 Billion in mobile app sales and rising those jobs will come from small businesses building mobile apps as we have 1 TBytes of free data to organize into mobile services every year that our current programming languages cannot self learn how to organize. Yes there will still net jobs loss as tech progress eliminates them..the new job is your small business you set-up
- petra 11y agoThat's not a that large of a number, considering it's a global industry.Also, we don't know how concentrated this wealth is.
- mwhuang2 11y agoExtra schooling only delays reality and leads to more debt. What really matters is simple supply and demand - whether people have the skills that others are willing to pay for.
- oconnor663 11y agoThe world has confronted this problem every decade since the beginning of time. Is there any reason to believe This Time Is Different?
- Kinnard 11y agoOnce we no longer need to work we can occupy ourselves with love, learning, passion and play!
- greengarstudios 11y agoStart a startup and create your own job?
- laurentoget 11y agoThis is quite a contradiction from the recent talk about demographic pressure leading to a wage turnaround. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34488950 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34488950 " Taking just wage growth, simply put (and for more detail follow the links above), an end to the global labour glut should see real wages (wages accounting for the change in prices) start to rise at a faster pace. An ONS report of 2014 found that UK real wages in the 1970s and 1980s grew by an average of 2.9% a year." so which is it? too many people or not enough?
- jbob2000 11y agoThis is anecdotal at best, but I feel like there is an apathy epidemic. It's fucking impossible to get people to even do "fun" things, much less a "boring" job. Everyone just wants to sit at home in front of a screen. It could just be the people I surround myself with, but that's the feeling I get.
- cousin_it 11y agoSolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration It's been done. It worked. Do it again.
- petra 11y agoIt's different this time. To do many things today(say like repair infrastructure) , the bottle neck is capital costs, not labor.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoExcept that was a short term fix. We need a long term century long solution.
- mygodtou 11y agoLots of people have great ideas but most governments stifle small business with excessive relations and fees.
- nathan_f77 11y agoAlternatively, let's rethink capitalism now that automation is taking over jobs. Maybe we all don't need to work so hard anymore.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoThese stories are always interesting to read, both from what they say, and what they don't say. For example, do you know that world wide there is a shortage of people in various trades roles[1] ? (Welding, masonry, carpentry, electricians, etc) And why are their young people who are loading up on debt they can't afford to go to Ivy league schools when they can be just as successful going to state schools? How much part time employement might be found if there wasn't a floor on minimum wage? [2] Since we don't have the category of 'extra' or 'part time' job like we used to, current minimum wage policy is geared toward making every job pay a living wage. That prices a lot of jobs out competitiveness for humans and spurs the development of robotic replacements. Not that those jobs are career paths, but they do offer people a bit of extra change in their pocket. A more intriguing question is to what end might you employ two or three hundred million people? Imagine they are sitting outside your window waiting for your command. Assuming you are paying them a living wage, what economic output could they accomplish that would be "worth" say 5 to 15 trillion dollars a year? [1] http://facilityexecutive.com/2015/05/u-s-employers-suffer-largest-talent-shortage-in-skilled-trades/ http://facilityexecutive.com/2015/05/u-s-employers-suffer-la... [2] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/44995 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/44995
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoAh, the old "I've got mine" philosophy. I'd like to see a solution that doesn't add up to "Screw developing countries". And I'm pretty sure what bringing work home means - you and I pay a buttload more for everything, because Westerners have to be well-paid. And in the end, if every fat cat has to "bring the work home" then they all just raise their prices. Its not the 1% that get hurt; its all the rest of us.
- DaveWalk 11y ago> Assuming you are paying them a living wage, what economic output could [200-300 million people] accomplish that would be "worth" say 5 to 15 trillion dollars a year? A good thought experiment! My initial thought was a spiritual successor to WPA-like projects of the depression, but I'm not very well-read on the economic outcomes. My layman view at least sees the humanitarian and creative output of such projects. But your last sentence is key: would it be "worth" 5-15 trillion/year? Is there a way to "measure" such a number of WPA-like projects?
- DrNuke 11y agoThe point is there will be less and less global-economy jobs (because of automation and the insane productivity it allows to very few skilled people) and more but not enough local-community jobs (caring, agriculture, menials and so on). In a fair deal of the so-called first world, too many educated people are just reverting to local-community jobs already, competing with the uneducated and migrants. This is not going to end peacefully if some sort of basic income is not introduced soon.
- collyw 11y agoOr just redistibute the wealth more equally.
- ionised 11y agoSounds like pinko-commie talk to me!
- maerF0x0 11y agoThere are a few ways to create many openings: 1. Legislate a maximum working hours (probably < 40 ) . 3 jobs at 40 hours per week becomes 4 jobs at 30 per week, 33% expansion, problem solved. 2. Allow humans to undercut automation in price competition (eg abolish minimum wage) 3. Expand government to employ people for whatever, just print the money you pay them. Clearly these all come with unsatisfactory side-effects. Maybe the fix is to end our obsession with creating jobs and jobs being the form of survival we offer our species. Imagine if we just created 600M jobs automating all the things so that those jobs would never (or nearly never) need to be done again? The future generations would need Billions of jobs! But no one would be worse off for it. Its like when a dishwasher became common place, suddenly kids were free to do more homework or facebook or xbox etc. Suddenly parents were more free not to have kids (to complete household chores). Etc etc. By automating and reducing the work that human kind has to do, we're enabling better lives all involved, including the displaced workers. Change hurts in the shortrun, but can bring utopia in the long run.
- s73v3r 11y ago#2 is probably the absolute worst possible thing to be done, and perhaps the most likely thing to be done. Abolishing minimum wage won't cause the costs of things to come down, but it will create even more people who are given no choice but to have a job that doesn't pay them enough to live, or starve. "Imagine if we just created 600M jobs automating all the things so that those jobs would never (or nearly never) need to be done again? The future generations would need Billions of jobs! But no one would be worse off for it." Except for the people who aren't able to buy food or put a roof over their heads because they don't have a job. "By automating and reducing the work that human kind has to do, we're enabling better lives all involved, including the displaced workers." You're gonna have to explain what's better about being evicted from your apartment because you can't pay rent.
- maerF0x0 11y agoYou're missing the point that if automation does all the work there is no competitive reason not to lower the price down to near 0 (or the cost of capital, which at current interest rates is VERY low). If I can get land, put robots on it and churn out apples, all entirely without my labor, and I can borrow the money for near free, at what price could I sell said apples for?
- oneJob 11y ago...because we don't have enough stuff and we always have to be doing something? How about, work less, live more.
- peg_leg 11y agoThe young people of today are different. They are on the cusp of potentially something wonderful and strange for the human race. Older people don't recognize it. The values are different. Maybe the idea of 'work' will change to suit them.
- xrange 11y ago>The young people of today are different... "They have exalted notions, because they have not yet been humbled by life or learnt its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things -- and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning; and whereas reasoning leads us to choose what is useful, moral goodness leads us to choose what is noble."
- peg_leg 11y agoAnother idea: how are people today that do so-called 'work' contributing to the human race anyway? In my occupation I call 'work' my contribution is minimal. I help build software to make corporations more money. Almost a negative on the human race. My saving grace is that I make music in my spare time. That is my real contribution to the world.
- dm03514 11y agoLess jobs more food. Grow food, at whatever scale available, pots in your room, pots on the balcony/porch, small gardens, side gardens, public spaces, large gardens.
- Mz 11y agoOr, we need 600m new small businesses, consultants, etc. The world can change, adapt.
- sudo-i 11y agoHey how valid is this information? I didn't quite grasp if they counted in other factors, for example, people incurrent jobs that will pass away. Additionally data such as baby boomers are getting older and will create markets in stagnant areas at the moment.
- sprucely 11y agoMeanwhile the more menial / labor-intensive jobs are being replaced by automation. I read somewhere that automation was supposed to be the great liberator, enabling an ever-increasing amount of leisure time. But at some point attitudes started shifting so that people must justify their existence by continuously working hard; and if things don't happen to work out for them, well they just weren't motivated enough. This attitude is apparent in our [US] welfare system which has a huge administrative overhead in place to prevent freeloading.
- moron4hire 11y agoI'm struck by the fact that, if 600M people were living together in one area, they'd spontaneously create jobs around the fact that 600M people will have to figure out ways to interact with each other in an civil way. I tend to believe that the reason we don't have enough jobs right now are because of market distortions that place unequal value on certain, expensive things, like college educations, personal vehicles of far greater passenger capacity than strictly necessary, private dwellings of extremely large size, and the latest and greatest smartphones ever two years. Our "betters" have successfully created a scenario where people willingly enter into debt slavery to acquire what they believe is their entitlement. Because, sans weird pricing, there is real need for work to be done, that is not getting done, in our current environments. There are roads that are falling apart. There is food that is not getting to hungry people. There are children who are not learning what they need to learn to be successful. There are hydrocarbons that are continuing to be burnt. There are routine medical physical exams that aren't being performed. There are things that people want, but can't acquire at a price that is reasonable. This could be a function of the constituent inputs being too expensive, but I doubt this. Arbitrage is a powerful force for innovation. I suspect there is a much stronger force at work that is preventing the goods and services that people need from being created: mega-corporate-backed government regulation. There are people in 1st world countries who are going hungry, who don't have heat, who don't have doors on their house. I have seen this with my own damn eyes. Yes, they are poor, but is their poverty their fault? And even if, in some extremely twisted way, it is their fault, does it justify forcing them to live in squalor? Should the laziest of lazy people be forced to live in literal shit-holes? As long as there are people willing to work but incapable of moving, I think a little "undeserved" compassion is a good enough reason to create a job. Just because some vanishingly few poor people are slovenly doesn't justify completely writing off the entire class.
- cies 11y agoWho needs a job? We need "goods", and to obtain then we usually trade in part of our monetary income; but that does not need to come from a job. I believe in "mincome" or "basic minimal income", as provided by a form of government to all citizens; to be paid for by tax money. This will be low, but enough to sustain yourself (simple shelter + food). If you want more then that you need to either find a job or walk a more entrepreneurial path and make a job. The amount people receive as "mincome" will be an important number to control by politicians. It will have a strong effect on the then emerging "post-mincome unemployment rate". This would be all people that are looking to supplement their mincome, but currently have not found the means to do so. I think a mincome-society will find a lot more people entrepeneuring: as a safety net is in place. The "jobs" that the article speaks of are only going to be created if there is a strict need for them. A business will usually only create a job in last resort, as employing people costs money and brings risks.
- tmaly 11y agoIf we had space exploration capability like in Star Trek, we could think about a different approach. But we are constrained to Earth and we have limited resources. Capitalism is the best system available to allocate resources. What we have right now is not really Capitalism.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- PebblesHD 11y agoThis is a truly massive global issue and it hits quite close to me. I've been absolutely lucky in going to university and getting a reasonably promising role in a financial institution whilst studying. The flip side has happened to my brother who at this point is stuck doing menial jobs to pay for food and transport to get to university whilst he collects debt for going. I've had conversations to the effect of 'I actually cannot afford to go to class today or ill be losing another few hundred dollars i need for food' which is not a though ANY young person should have to face. The system needs immediate change for the future of our current society.
- faragon 11y agoLet's produce more. Let's make a rich world for everyone :-)
- pinaceae 11y agoI don't fully understand this claim. The job market has people coming in, but also, in parallel, people exiting out of it. developed markets, especially in Europe and Japan, will see massive attrition due to people retiring or dying off. the baby boomer generation in the US is retiring as well. all those jobs need to be backfilled and all those old people will need services. as the world population is stabilizing, it should not be that bad, no?
- mrdrozdov 11y agoSounds like a good time to create an education business. :)