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Most 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 l

Most 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 ago
Yeah, 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 ago
    Plumbers 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
  > in the US, getting a job as a barista or fast food is possible, but a horrendous waste of a college education. Maybe. Not all college educations are created equal. Got a major in philosophy? You're not useful to the economy, there are no jobs and no one is wasting your education. Of course the example here is facetious, the point is this: If you have a college education/degree in something that is not marketable to the economy, the waste is not the economies fault, but that of whomever pursued that education.
  - xrange 11y ago
    >the waste is not the economies fault, but that of whomever pursued that education. I'm willing to place at least 75% of the blame on the recipient, but I try not to discount the previous 12+ years of "education is our greatest asset" propaganda targeted towards children.
    - Phlarp 11y ago
      Even for 18 year olds with an inclination to think it's all bullshit-- nobody will ever present you with an alternate viable path. It's always "You don't want to end up a loser right? Sign here..." and next thing you know the creditors are calling looking for their $X0,000. Classic peer pressure techniques apparently count as sagely advice when coming from high school guidance counselors
  - linkregister 11y ago
    I would posit that many businesses don't know the great value of a graduate with a good philosophy education. Critical thinking, clear writing, and persuasively advocating a position are all essential to business management.
    - ececconi 11y ago
      I got my undergrad degrees in mechanical engineering and philosophy. I'd say the philosophy degree was for sure worthwhile for my life and career.
    - 11y ago
- rhino369 11y ago
  >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. But there have never been enough "good" white collar to employ the current number of Americans getting a college education. The difference was there were enough good, white collar jobs for the college graduates back then. But the number of college graduates has exploded. You can train another 20k Physicists, but we wouldn't have any use for them. And the quality of the degrees are lower too because colleges are accepting (and then graduating) worse and worse students. Not everyone is cut out to do great things. There is no shame in slinging coffee.
  - hoorayimhelping 11y ago
    >There is no shame in slinging coffee. I was raised to think this - there is absolutely no shame in working for a living. This scene from Girls basically sums up millenials and their relationship with work for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgK_tPnGfcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgK_tPnGfcI
  - intopieces 11y ago
    >There is no shame in slinging coffee. The shame isn't in the work, the shame is in having no money to do anything: get a decent apartment, raise a family, go on vacation, provide for a spouse.
    - rhino369 11y ago
      Expecting to provide for a spouse is outdated now that women are in the work place. They increased worker supply, driving down wages.
      - intopieces 11y ago
        >They increased worker supply, driving down wages. True, and the switch in economic focus from manufacturing to services hasn't helped much either. Makes me wonder how single people raise kids when the average wage/salary anticipates 2 earners.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- vacri 11y ago
  > Yeah, there's always some holdovers commenting from the era of easy jobs and easy money. Ironically, this complaint always seems to ignore that a ton of jobs in the "easy jobs" era were shitty menial jobs. Factory work in shitty conditions and similar. These are the jobs that have been automated away. And, strangely, this kind of comment also ignores that women weren't anywhere near as significant a part of the old workforce... and the ones that were had signficantly reduced opportunites available and were legally paid less than men.
icelancer 11y ago
> Most 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. The reality is that BOTH are true. There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. My generation is facing this crisis, and the default response is to complain. Which is fine for a few minutes or days, it's good to vent. But at the end of the day, that won't change anything. It's time to get to work, even if "work" is 20-30% (random number) tougher than what our parents dealt with. Assigning blame doesn't solve anything. That being said, I definitely agree some sort of Basic Income strategy will be necessary going forward. Perhaps soon.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- xrange 11y ago
  >It's time to get to work, even if "work" is 20-30% (random number) tougher than what our parents dealt with. ...sounds like: "Why Generation Y Yuppies are Unhappy" http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-u...
  - collyw 11y ago
    I don't know why everyone thinks that article is great. Its just a fairly crappy opinion pice to me with no real researc or evidence.
- daenz 11y ago
  > There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. This is pie-in-the-sky thinking, but maybe there should be a law. Corporations have a legal duty to shareholders to make money. Why shouldn't our government have a legal duty to society to increase our resources and make things easier for each generation?
  - 11y ago
jaredhansen 11y ago
>You can try as hard as you want to get a job - if no one is hiring, you aren't going to get one. True as far as it goes, and I too am concerned about the future of work, but I'm skeptical that we have ever seen, or will ever see, a future in which "no one is hiring". Today, there is tremendous demand for certain occupations, even as others are being hollowed out. The difference from historical expectations is that the rate of change between who was hiring last year and who will be hiring next year is growing, and quickly. People "trying hard" to get jobs in technology almost certainly can do so. People "trying really, really, really hard" to get jobs in heavy manufacturing in the American midwest are probably going to have a hard time (as are would-be blacksmiths, weavers, scribes, typists, telephone operators and many others). Said another way: the direction of the "hard work" vector is more important than the magnitude. Said still another way: "work smarter, not harder". Said yet one more way: "make something people want."
- djhn 11y ago
  > Said yet one more way: "make something people want." Or for a less general form, more aimed at the future employee than the self-starter: develop skills to produce what people need.
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  > Today, there is tremendous demand for certain occupations, even as others are being hollowed out. While that is true, these certain occupations tend to have a skillset or a depth of knowledge that most (not all) "classical" (here used as non-STEM) educations do not provide. As we progress forward, it becomes legitimately disingenuous to put green-behind-the-ears college students on an academic path that will undoubtedly lead them to unemployment at the end of that road. And I hate to break it to you, even occupations that still enjoys a demand in hiring such as software / native-app engineering / web development are also to become more scarce as greater droves of students enter these fields and a global economy allows employers to find offshore work for cheaper. > People "trying hard" to get jobs in technology almost certainly can do so. People "trying really, really, really hard" to get jobs in heavy manufacturing in the American midwest are probably going to have a hard time (as are would-be blacksmiths, weavers, scribes, typists, telephone operators and many others). At what point do you begin to discredit everyone incapable of getting a job with "you aren't trying hard/smart enough" ? This is a bit of a hypothetical question - I'm not taking shots at your argument, but its something that is very important to ask of ourselves and of others.
rorykoehler 11y ago
The world's needs are not being met. Only the needs of the capitalist who wants to turn a profit. I can think of a million and one things we should be doing but won't because of money.
- petra 11y ago
  I agree that there are a million things we could do, but at the end of the day,somebody has to be interested enough to pay for them. That was always the harder issue. But if you have ideas that fit that criteria, please share. We need such discussions.
  - mikepurvis 11y ago
    The point of BI is that the government doesn't actually need to be involved in centrally planning all of the things that need doing— it's a huge amount of unnecessary bureaucracy when many of them are things people would love to do given freedom from having to immediately "earn a living". So the government doesn't pay you to pick up trash in the ravine near your home. The government pays you because you are a citizen, and as a citizen of a wealthy nation, you deserve the basics of life. If you spend that life consuming fast food and internet porn, that's okay. But given the time and freedom to do so, some people will choose to clean up that ravine— they weren't directly paid, but having their living expenses covered made it possible.
    - petra 11y ago
      Currently people who work volunteer more than people who don't work. Further more volunteers give only an average of 3 hours/week. That's not much, in the context of our discussion.
      - rorykoehler 11y ago
        I dunno about the metric you are judging volunteering on here. Do the people who don't volunteer and don't work have enough money to get to the place where they will provide the volunteering service. As context and a little thought experiment: I have just switched careers and have had to cut back on expenses to a bare minimum while I was learning the skills required to get a job in my desired field. I had decided not to work and focus 100% on learning. During this time I barely left the house and if I did I would walk, sometimes up to 10km, because I didn't have the money for even the train (food and rent come first). On the flip side my mother was a housewife while my dad worked (very traditional I know!) but she would volunteer in 3 different places because she could afford to (time and money).
scotty79 11y ago
You can always make more jobs. Just tax people that have money and give the money away to other people in exchange for participating in elaborate paper pushing schemes. Bureaucracy has been providing jobs for people as the technology progressed. For example... No jobs? That's great opportunity to hire some people to help unemployed look for a job plus some people to educate the unemployed plus some people that would decide if unemployed deserves some material aid... you can also hire some people to audit those people and hire some more to build software for those people and for the auditors and so on and so forth. As long as you can tax, you can invent bullshit jobs to have an excuse to give that money away.
- mtinkerhess 11y ago
  Sure, or you can tax people that have money and spend that to invest in infrastructure, education, health care, etc., which also creates jobs.
  - scotty79 11y ago
    Yes. But that requires some thought, decisions, why this not that. People will hate you. Bureaucracy grows organically and almost no one notices and people are happy because they have more jobs.
jimmyk 11y ago
>the world's needs can and will be met by fewer and fewer people Perhaps, but jobs also exist to fulfill wants, and there's no end to those.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zygomega 11y ago
A major fault line in the current economic system is the concept of 'right to work'. The current structure presumes that the right to receive a proportion of economic goods of a society should be strongly associated with employment. But with most jobs are already meaningless from the viewpoint of economic productivity, the 'right to work' ethic concentrates power in the hands of the managerial classes in charge of job placement, who are very good at inventing new ways to pretend that this is all economically beneficial. The truly horrendous problem with all of this is that our standard of living is statistically quite high so the system is sustainable for a long while, until it eventually collapses under it's own weight of pointlessness.
- saym 11y ago
  > But with most jobs are already meaningless from the viewpoint of economic productivity I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just wondering if there's any research that's quantified this idea. I have no idea how you qualify meaninglessness and economic productivity.
- task_queue 11y ago
  'Right to work' is a specific term used in the US to designate labor legislation used to cripple unions and shouldn't be confused with a general 'right' to employment. The choice in terminology had me very confused on the first read.
- parasubvert 11y ago
  "But with most jobs are already meaningless from the viewpoint of economic productivity" That's highly debatable (the word "most", specifically). I've heard the argument before, but there is a reason we have labor productivity statistics that try to quantify this. "A major fault line in the current economic system is the concept of 'right to work'." This isn't just a fault line, this is the foundation of market economics for the purpose of human welfare. You participate in the economic system by trading your resources, e.g. land, labour/time, capital, and knowledge. At first glance, we seemingly never have enough time in the developed world, so lack of jobs implies there seems to be a problem in the distribution and renewal of knowledge. If a market can't work for the world's exchange problems, we're currently fucked as to a lack of functional and pareto efficient alternatives.
Camillo 11y ago
> The reality is that as time goes on, the world's needs can and will be met by fewer and fewer people. This is true, but I don't think it accounts for most of the youth unemployment we have seen so far. The jobs did not go to robots in America, they went to workers in China. To answer another common theme: we can complain about CEO pay, tax cuts, stagnant wages, etc., but the reason for the pure and simple lack of jobs is not any of those things, it's just that those jobs went elsewhere. And of course that affects you even if you were not going to work in a factory, because now the guy who was going to do that is trying to get through college and get a white collar job, so he's competing with you. In turn, that means that going to college is now the baseline. So, after getting more people to get into more debt to get more degrees, maybe you find that you still can't get a job.
- adamnemecek 11y ago
  > This is true, but I don't think it accounts for most of the youth unemployment we have seen so far. The jobs did not go to robots in America, they went to workers in China. I think that that is only temporary though. Once the wages in China rise enough, the jobs will be probably given to robots possibly in America.
  - Animats 11y ago
    Robots in China, quite likely. Foxconn is moving to robots as fast as they can and laying off people as they do so.
    - adamnemecek 11y ago
      Well buying robots will probably cost the same in China and America. But for US market, if you manufacture things in the US, you will shorten your supply chain and save on logistics. But yeah, your guess is as good as mine.
  - Sammi 11y ago
    Yes. China is already running our of its cheapest new labor recruits. And while people haven't been looking many of the biggest African economies have started to get going. The time when you cannot outsource for cheap labor anymore is approaching fast.
hollaur 11y ago
"When you know your passion and you're unwilling to live by somebody else's rules, you can make your own way. And don't misunderstand, this is not about breaking rules, this is about producing results. Ignore the job description and produce results for somebody, I promise you, you won't be ignored. People will change the rules for you if you can produce outstanding results." - Tony Robbins https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140527113908-101706366-if-i-were-22-to-succeed-you-need-to-be-hungry?trk=mp-details-rc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140527113908-101706366-if-i...
delibes 11y ago
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
snowwrestler 11y ago
> The reality is that as time goes on, the world's needs can and will be met by fewer and fewer people. The crucial line is when basic needs for life can be met by a minority of the population, and that line was crossed decades ago thanks to the industrial revolution. > This should be a good thing, but it won't work under most existing economic systems. Almost the entire world operates in an economic system that assumes, as a starting condition that not every person needs to work on providing for needs. That is how innovation can happen, and new industries can develop, like the entire entertainment, sports, and computer technology industries to just name a few. > Our entire economy has to change to accomodate the new reality that a significant percentage of the population will be unemployed. There is no evidence that improving the productivity of existing industries leads to long-term unemployment growth. In fact the evidence shows that the nations with the highest productivity gains are also the nations that have the highest standards of living and lowest unemployment. The secret is innovation. Nations with growing productivity can innovate and create new industries, which create new jobs to "soak up" the new population. On top of this, global population growth is slowing and will basically stop--and maybe even reverse--within the next century. At that point, improving productivity will be the only possible way to continue growing standards of living.

cryoshon 11y ago

Yeah, 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 ago
  Plumbers 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
> in the US, getting a job as a barista or fast food is possible, but a horrendous waste of a college education. Maybe. Not all college educations are created equal. Got a major in philosophy? You're not useful to the economy, there are no jobs and no one is wasting your education. Of course the example here is facetious, the point is this: If you have a college education/degree in something that is not marketable to the economy, the waste is not the economies fault, but that of whomever pursued that education.
- xrange 11y ago
  >the waste is not the economies fault, but that of whomever pursued that education. I'm willing to place at least 75% of the blame on the recipient, but I try not to discount the previous 12+ years of "education is our greatest asset" propaganda targeted towards children.
  - Phlarp 11y ago
    Even for 18 year olds with an inclination to think it's all bullshit-- nobody will ever present you with an alternate viable path. It's always "You don't want to end up a loser right? Sign here..." and next thing you know the creditors are calling looking for their $X0,000. Classic peer pressure techniques apparently count as sagely advice when coming from high school guidance counselors
- linkregister 11y ago
  I would posit that many businesses don't know the great value of a graduate with a good philosophy education. Critical thinking, clear writing, and persuasively advocating a position are all essential to business management.
  - ececconi 11y ago
    I got my undergrad degrees in mechanical engineering and philosophy. I'd say the philosophy degree was for sure worthwhile for my life and career.
  - 11y ago
rhino369 11y ago
>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. But there have never been enough "good" white collar to employ the current number of Americans getting a college education. The difference was there were enough good, white collar jobs for the college graduates back then. But the number of college graduates has exploded. You can train another 20k Physicists, but we wouldn't have any use for them. And the quality of the degrees are lower too because colleges are accepting (and then graduating) worse and worse students. Not everyone is cut out to do great things. There is no shame in slinging coffee.
- hoorayimhelping 11y ago
  >There is no shame in slinging coffee. I was raised to think this - there is absolutely no shame in working for a living. This scene from Girls basically sums up millenials and their relationship with work for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgK_tPnGfcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgK_tPnGfcI
- intopieces 11y ago
  >There is no shame in slinging coffee. The shame isn't in the work, the shame is in having no money to do anything: get a decent apartment, raise a family, go on vacation, provide for a spouse.
  - rhino369 11y ago
    Expecting to provide for a spouse is outdated now that women are in the work place. They increased worker supply, driving down wages.
    - intopieces 11y ago
      >They increased worker supply, driving down wages. True, and the switch in economic focus from manufacturing to services hasn't helped much either. Makes me wonder how single people raise kids when the average wage/salary anticipates 2 earners.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
vacri 11y ago
> Yeah, there's always some holdovers commenting from the era of easy jobs and easy money. Ironically, this complaint always seems to ignore that a ton of jobs in the "easy jobs" era were shitty menial jobs. Factory work in shitty conditions and similar. These are the jobs that have been automated away. And, strangely, this kind of comment also ignores that women weren't anywhere near as significant a part of the old workforce... and the ones that were had signficantly reduced opportunites available and were legally paid less than men.

icelancer 11y ago

> Most 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. The reality is that BOTH are true. There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. My generation is facing this crisis, and the default response is to complain. Which is fine for a few minutes or days, it's good to vent. But at the end of the day, that won't change anything. It's time to get to work, even if "work" is 20-30% (random number) tougher than what our parents dealt with. Assigning blame doesn't solve anything. That being said, I definitely agree some sort of Basic Income strategy will be necessary going forward. Perhaps soon.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
xrange 11y ago
>It's time to get to work, even if "work" is 20-30% (random number) tougher than what our parents dealt with. ...sounds like: "Why Generation Y Yuppies are Unhappy" http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-u...
- collyw 11y ago
  I don't know why everyone thinks that article is great. Its just a fairly crappy opinion pice to me with no real researc or evidence.
daenz 11y ago
> There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. This is pie-in-the-sky thinking, but maybe there should be a law. Corporations have a legal duty to shareholders to make money. Why shouldn't our government have a legal duty to society to increase our resources and make things easier for each generation?
- 11y ago

jaredhansen 11y ago

>You can try as hard as you want to get a job - if no one is hiring, you aren't going to get one. True as far as it goes, and I too am concerned about the future of work, but I'm skeptical that we have ever seen, or will ever see, a future in which "no one is hiring". Today, there is tremendous demand for certain occupations, even as others are being hollowed out. The difference from historical expectations is that the rate of change between who was hiring last year and who will be hiring next year is growing, and quickly. People "trying hard" to get jobs in technology almost certainly can do so. People "trying really, really, really hard" to get jobs in heavy manufacturing in the American midwest are probably going to have a hard time (as are would-be blacksmiths, weavers, scribes, typists, telephone operators and many others). Said another way: the direction of the "hard work" vector is more important than the magnitude. Said still another way: "work smarter, not harder". Said yet one more way: "make something people want."

djhn 11y ago
> Said yet one more way: "make something people want." Or for a less general form, more aimed at the future employee than the self-starter: develop skills to produce what people need.
FilterSweep 11y ago
> Today, there is tremendous demand for certain occupations, even as others are being hollowed out. While that is true, these certain occupations tend to have a skillset or a depth of knowledge that most (not all) "classical" (here used as non-STEM) educations do not provide. As we progress forward, it becomes legitimately disingenuous to put green-behind-the-ears college students on an academic path that will undoubtedly lead them to unemployment at the end of that road. And I hate to break it to you, even occupations that still enjoys a demand in hiring such as software / native-app engineering / web development are also to become more scarce as greater droves of students enter these fields and a global economy allows employers to find offshore work for cheaper. > People "trying hard" to get jobs in technology almost certainly can do so. People "trying really, really, really hard" to get jobs in heavy manufacturing in the American midwest are probably going to have a hard time (as are would-be blacksmiths, weavers, scribes, typists, telephone operators and many others). At what point do you begin to discredit everyone incapable of getting a job with "you aren't trying hard/smart enough" ? This is a bit of a hypothetical question - I'm not taking shots at your argument, but its something that is very important to ask of ourselves and of others.

rorykoehler 11y ago

The world's needs are not being met. Only the needs of the capitalist who wants to turn a profit. I can think of a million and one things we should be doing but won't because of money.

petra 11y ago
I agree that there are a million things we could do, but at the end of the day,somebody has to be interested enough to pay for them. That was always the harder issue. But if you have ideas that fit that criteria, please share. We need such discussions.
- mikepurvis 11y ago
  The point of BI is that the government doesn't actually need to be involved in centrally planning all of the things that need doing— it's a huge amount of unnecessary bureaucracy when many of them are things people would love to do given freedom from having to immediately "earn a living". So the government doesn't pay you to pick up trash in the ravine near your home. The government pays you because you are a citizen, and as a citizen of a wealthy nation, you deserve the basics of life. If you spend that life consuming fast food and internet porn, that's okay. But given the time and freedom to do so, some people will choose to clean up that ravine— they weren't directly paid, but having their living expenses covered made it possible.
  - petra 11y ago
    Currently people who work volunteer more than people who don't work. Further more volunteers give only an average of 3 hours/week. That's not much, in the context of our discussion.
    - rorykoehler 11y ago
      I dunno about the metric you are judging volunteering on here. Do the people who don't volunteer and don't work have enough money to get to the place where they will provide the volunteering service. As context and a little thought experiment: I have just switched careers and have had to cut back on expenses to a bare minimum while I was learning the skills required to get a job in my desired field. I had decided not to work and focus 100% on learning. During this time I barely left the house and if I did I would walk, sometimes up to 10km, because I didn't have the money for even the train (food and rent come first). On the flip side my mother was a housewife while my dad worked (very traditional I know!) but she would volunteer in 3 different places because she could afford to (time and money).

scotty79 11y ago

You can always make more jobs. Just tax people that have money and give the money away to other people in exchange for participating in elaborate paper pushing schemes. Bureaucracy has been providing jobs for people as the technology progressed. For example... No jobs? That's great opportunity to hire some people to help unemployed look for a job plus some people to educate the unemployed plus some people that would decide if unemployed deserves some material aid... you can also hire some people to audit those people and hire some more to build software for those people and for the auditors and so on and so forth. As long as you can tax, you can invent bullshit jobs to have an excuse to give that money away.

mtinkerhess 11y ago
Sure, or you can tax people that have money and spend that to invest in infrastructure, education, health care, etc., which also creates jobs.
- scotty79 11y ago
  Yes. But that requires some thought, decisions, why this not that. People will hate you. Bureaucracy grows organically and almost no one notices and people are happy because they have more jobs.

jimmyk 11y ago

>the world's needs can and will be met by fewer and fewer people Perhaps, but jobs also exist to fulfill wants, and there's no end to those.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

zygomega 11y ago

A major fault line in the current economic system is the concept of 'right to work'. The current structure presumes that the right to receive a proportion of economic goods of a society should be strongly associated with employment. But with most jobs are already meaningless from the viewpoint of economic productivity, the 'right to work' ethic concentrates power in the hands of the managerial classes in charge of job placement, who are very good at inventing new ways to pretend that this is all economically beneficial. The truly horrendous problem with all of this is that our standard of living is statistically quite high so the system is sustainable for a long while, until it eventually collapses under it's own weight of pointlessness.

saym 11y ago
> But with most jobs are already meaningless from the viewpoint of economic productivity I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just wondering if there's any research that's quantified this idea. I have no idea how you qualify meaninglessness and economic productivity.
task_queue 11y ago
'Right to work' is a specific term used in the US to designate labor legislation used to cripple unions and shouldn't be confused with a general 'right' to employment. The choice in terminology had me very confused on the first read.
parasubvert 11y ago
"But with most jobs are already meaningless from the viewpoint of economic productivity" That's highly debatable (the word "most", specifically). I've heard the argument before, but there is a reason we have labor productivity statistics that try to quantify this. "A major fault line in the current economic system is the concept of 'right to work'." This isn't just a fault line, this is the foundation of market economics for the purpose of human welfare. You participate in the economic system by trading your resources, e.g. land, labour/time, capital, and knowledge. At first glance, we seemingly never have enough time in the developed world, so lack of jobs implies there seems to be a problem in the distribution and renewal of knowledge. If a market can't work for the world's exchange problems, we're currently fucked as to a lack of functional and pareto efficient alternatives.

Camillo 11y ago

> The reality is that as time goes on, the world's needs can and will be met by fewer and fewer people. This is true, but I don't think it accounts for most of the youth unemployment we have seen so far. The jobs did not go to robots in America, they went to workers in China. To answer another common theme: we can complain about CEO pay, tax cuts, stagnant wages, etc., but the reason for the pure and simple lack of jobs is not any of those things, it's just that those jobs went elsewhere. And of course that affects you even if you were not going to work in a factory, because now the guy who was going to do that is trying to get through college and get a white collar job, so he's competing with you. In turn, that means that going to college is now the baseline. So, after getting more people to get into more debt to get more degrees, maybe you find that you still can't get a job.

adamnemecek 11y ago
> This is true, but I don't think it accounts for most of the youth unemployment we have seen so far. The jobs did not go to robots in America, they went to workers in China. I think that that is only temporary though. Once the wages in China rise enough, the jobs will be probably given to robots possibly in America.
- Animats 11y ago
  Robots in China, quite likely. Foxconn is moving to robots as fast as they can and laying off people as they do so.
  - adamnemecek 11y ago
    Well buying robots will probably cost the same in China and America. But for US market, if you manufacture things in the US, you will shorten your supply chain and save on logistics. But yeah, your guess is as good as mine.
- Sammi 11y ago
  Yes. China is already running our of its cheapest new labor recruits. And while people haven't been looking many of the biggest African economies have started to get going. The time when you cannot outsource for cheap labor anymore is approaching fast.

hollaur 11y ago

"When you know your passion and you're unwilling to live by somebody else's rules, you can make your own way. And don't misunderstand, this is not about breaking rules, this is about producing results. Ignore the job description and produce results for somebody, I promise you, you won't be ignored. People will change the rules for you if you can produce outstanding results." - Tony Robbins https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140527113908-101706366-if-i-were-22-to-succeed-you-need-to-be-hungry?trk=mp-details-rc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140527113908-101706366-if-i...

delibes 11y ago

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

snowwrestler 11y ago

> The reality is that as time goes on, the world's needs can and will be met by fewer and fewer people. The crucial line is when basic needs for life can be met by a minority of the population, and that line was crossed decades ago thanks to the industrial revolution. > This should be a good thing, but it won't work under most existing economic systems. Almost the entire world operates in an economic system that assumes, as a starting condition that not every person needs to work on providing for needs. That is how innovation can happen, and new industries can develop, like the entire entertainment, sports, and computer technology industries to just name a few. > Our entire economy has to change to accomodate the new reality that a significant percentage of the population will be unemployed. There is no evidence that improving the productivity of existing industries leads to long-term unemployment growth. In fact the evidence shows that the nations with the highest productivity gains are also the nations that have the highest standards of living and lowest unemployment. The secret is innovation. Nations with growing productivity can innovate and create new industries, which create new jobs to "soak up" the new population. On top of this, global population growth is slowing and will basically stop--and maybe even reverse--within the next century. At that point, improving productivity will be the only possible way to continue growing standards of living.