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> "Those 'elsewheres' will then see more employment." Not necessarily. If a company can capitalise on those new opportunities without employing the levels of w
by ZenoArrow 11y ago
> "Those 'elsewheres' will then see more employment."
Not necessarily. If a company can capitalise on those new opportunities without employing the levels of workers that are made redundant by the shift in the market, then this mechanism you're describing will not work.
A classic example is Walmart vs Amazon. Putting aside their side businesses, their core business is broadly the same. In the US, Walmart employs approximately 1.4 million people. Amazon.com employs approximately 230,800 people. Walmart is still larger than Amazon in terms of sales, but consider this...
http://time.com/4040160/amazon-walmart/ http://time.com/4040160/amazon-walmart/
"Today, Walmart’s revenue is still much larger–although only 5 times larger now–and Amazon’s revenue per employee ($623,000) is nearly three times that of Walmart."
Why would Amazon seek to employ Walmart-levels of people when their business model allows each employee to earn 3x greater revenue (on average)?
That gap will get even bigger with automation.
- swimfar 11y agoMaybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like Walmart has 5x as much revenue as Amazon with 6x as many employees. Then you say that Amazon has 3x the revenue per employee as Walmart. Shouldn't that be 1.2x the revenue per employee?
- Animats 11y agoGood point. The Time article does say that, but the numbers don't.
- ZenoArrow 11y agoYou're both partially right, the numbers from the Time article appear to be off, but other sources still indicate that the difference in revenue per employee is greater than x1.2. Here's a simple but imperfect comparison, let's look at Amazon 2014 vs Walmart 2015 (I'm using those years because they were the easiest stats to find, if you can source similar stats for Amazon 2015 or Walmart 2014 feel free to link to them)... Amazon 2014: http://www.statista.com/statistics/234488/number-of-amazon-employees/ http://www.statista.com/statistics/234488/number-of-amazon-e... Revenue: $89 billion. Number of employees: 154,100. Revenue per employee: $577,547. Walmart 2015: http://corporate.walmart.com/_news_/walmart-facts/corporate-financial-fact-sheet http://corporate.walmart.com/_news_/walmart-facts/corporate-... Revenue: $482.2 billion (not clear if just in US or globally). Number of employees: 1.4 million US (2.2 million globally). Revenue per employee: $344,428 if revenue is US only, $219,182 if revenue is worldwide. Difference in revenue per employee: X1.68 (if Walmart revenue is US only), or x2.68 (if Walmart revenue is worldwide).
- Animats 11y agoIs this counting Amazon's various computer services? Those are profitable but not labor-intensive.