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>So far automation has not resulted in net fewer jobs Yes. Yes it has. Manufacturing has seen hundred of thousands of jobs replaced. And the amount of software

by pikzen 10y ago

>So far automation has not resulted in net fewer jobs Yes. Yes it has. Manufacturing has seen hundred of thousands of jobs replaced. And the amount of software developers or maintenance jobs created to make that work doesn't even begin to cover what has been lost. As far as job creation goes, guess you'll have to check that up with the ever growing percentage of unemployment throughout first world countries.

retube 10y ago
yes there's less manufacturing jobs. There's also less farming jobs, and less clerical jobs, and fewer blacksmiths, cobblers, seamstresses and about a 1,000 other professions too. But the developed world is at near full employment.
- JDiculous 10y ago
  Full employment is a meaningless metric. If 90% of the workforce is working meaningless minimum wage jobs and barely making ends meet, the economy is at "full employment", but that doesn't mean we're doing well. Full unemployment also doesn't take into account the labor participation rate, which has been on a downward trend.
- candiodari 10y ago
  And ever since 1990 or so the percentage of the population that is working has dropped. Very slowly at first, then much, much faster since 2008. We're currently at ~5% less employed, relative to total population than before. Granted, there are more employed persons total, but population is growing faster. Therefore the experience that people keep referring to, that less people have jobs (relative to the total they know), is accurate (not in the Bay Area, though only by the slimmest of margins. It is not far from the truth that employment has been stagnant for coming up on 30 years even there). In the US 152 million people have a job, for a total of 321.6 million people total, plus about 12 million (wtf) illegal immigrants. So in the US, today, a little under 46% of the population is employed. 10 years ago that was about 47% and it was over 55% in 1990, about when the decline started. That means, of course, that the economic value a single individual provides today has to be distributed over 1/46%, or 2.1 individuals, whereas it used to be only 1.8. Since the financial crisis there has, from this perspective, been no recovery. In fact, things continued to become systematically worse since 1990 (but with a huge dive downward in 2008). There is an uptic since middle 2015, but, frankly, that looks a lot more like a blip than a recovery. Granted, in Europe, the situation is much worse, especially in Southern Europe (but it will be as bad in Northern Europe in a decade or so, as we're getting close to the point that even the massive and very much unsustainable immigration Europe is experiencing cannot keep those countries' labour forces from declining). And of course, this situation is about half due to baby boomers retiring and half due to people "leaving the labor force" (having 2 family members who have "left the labor force" I feel the scare quotes are justified. They have not left the labor force voluntarily) This is also disregarding that there has been a massive shift from manufacturing into service jobs. The problem with that is that it's a massive shift from $25/hour unionized, rigid hours, stable jobs for decades, with benefits into $9/hour without benefits, shifting hours, no unions, jobs lasting about 1.5 years, tops. That has happened, over the last 20 years, to close to 20% of the labor force, or over 30 million people.

by pikzen 10y ago

retube 10y ago

yes there's less manufacturing jobs. There's also less farming jobs, and less clerical jobs, and fewer blacksmiths, cobblers, seamstresses and about a 1,000 other professions too. But the developed world is at near full employment.

JDiculous 10y ago
Full employment is a meaningless metric. If 90% of the workforce is working meaningless minimum wage jobs and barely making ends meet, the economy is at "full employment", but that doesn't mean we're doing well. Full unemployment also doesn't take into account the labor participation rate, which has been on a downward trend.
candiodari 10y ago
And ever since 1990 or so the percentage of the population that is working has dropped. Very slowly at first, then much, much faster since 2008. We're currently at ~5% less employed, relative to total population than before. Granted, there are more employed persons total, but population is growing faster. Therefore the experience that people keep referring to, that less people have jobs (relative to the total they know), is accurate (not in the Bay Area, though only by the slimmest of margins. It is not far from the truth that employment has been stagnant for coming up on 30 years even there). In the US 152 million people have a job, for a total of 321.6 million people total, plus about 12 million (wtf) illegal immigrants. So in the US, today, a little under 46% of the population is employed. 10 years ago that was about 47% and it was over 55% in 1990, about when the decline started. That means, of course, that the economic value a single individual provides today has to be distributed over 1/46%, or 2.1 individuals, whereas it used to be only 1.8. Since the financial crisis there has, from this perspective, been no recovery. In fact, things continued to become systematically worse since 1990 (but with a huge dive downward in 2008). There is an uptic since middle 2015, but, frankly, that looks a lot more like a blip than a recovery. Granted, in Europe, the situation is much worse, especially in Southern Europe (but it will be as bad in Northern Europe in a decade or so, as we're getting close to the point that even the massive and very much unsustainable immigration Europe is experiencing cannot keep those countries' labour forces from declining). And of course, this situation is about half due to baby boomers retiring and half due to people "leaving the labor force" (having 2 family members who have "left the labor force" I feel the scare quotes are justified. They have not left the labor force voluntarily) This is also disregarding that there has been a massive shift from manufacturing into service jobs. The problem with that is that it's a massive shift from $25/hour unionized, rigid hours, stable jobs for decades, with benefits into $9/hour without benefits, shifting hours, no unions, jobs lasting about 1.5 years, tops. That has happened, over the last 20 years, to close to 20% of the labor force, or over 30 million people.