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Okay... so now also include in your statement the quality of those new jobs. Not how many electronic gadgets people can buy compared to 50 years ago, but how st

Okay... so now also include in your statement the quality of those new jobs. Not how many electronic gadgets people can buy compared to 50 years ago, but how stressed they are and how they fit into greater society. Also include how useful many jobs feel to those working in them - reference to "Dilbert jobs" (or Wally jobs, if you like and how common the feeling seems to be that ones job is useless (I myself certainly had quite a few high-paying (IT) freelancer jobs - the ones where you would expect more rigour before the position is created - where I had clear evidence that the job was completely useless, but it's hard to decline 6-figure income for half a year when society punishes you if you do that). I don't see the point in making an argument when it's only based on "there is a(ny) job". Here where I live now the bureaucrats can trim the number of jobless by putting them into temporary and mostly useless training programs. Useless according not to me but to any analysis ever published in (the major) news media in my country. Also, the number of people working for worker-lease companies instead of being "direct employees" has increased may times over the last two decades. Part of making the workforce "more flexible". Now they have less pay, are sent around the country much more often and can't establish themselves in one place (or have a family life where they are away all week and have stressful weekend travel to and from the places of work) - but sure, "flexibility" is up. It does not matter if the families those people create will have much less happy kids - as long as the total numbers still look alright. Right?If you "migrate" a job from a stable decades-long factory job to being an Uber driver, 1 == 1 so it's all the same on the bottom line?

perfunctory 7y ago
A while ago I created a poll about BS jobs which unfortunately didn't attract much attention. With N=8, most HNers have bullshit jobs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17880159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17880159
- majewsky 7y ago
  This poll is missing a crucial option, "Don't know". What I noticed in bigcorps is that they do the same stuff that small startups do with way more people. What a startup does with 3 people, bigcorp needs 60 people for that. But when you look at it from up close, it's incredibly hard to tell which of those 60 people are the ones that are actually needed.
rjf72 7y ago
Contrary to intuition, the average number of hours people work has completely plummeted as well. It's down more than 250 hours a year since the 1950s. [1] At a 40 hour work week that means we now take a bit more than an extra 1.5 months off per year, compared to then. And on topics on forums such as these when you get into physical jobs such as, e.g. plumbers, people bemoan the physical exertion of these jobs and claim the workers are destroying their bodies. OK. Now let's go back to those 'less stressful times.' In the fifties you were looking 7 injuries per 100 workers, and a nation wide average of around 15,000 on-the-job deaths a year. [2] The total workforce back then was only about 62 million. That's 1 in every ~4,100 workers being killed on the job per year. Part of the reason for the rise of occupational safety rules is that so many people were dying on the job that it was hurting the economy! And this is without even getting into the political differences of the times. In the 1950s people were still just getting over a world war that killed 3% of the entire world's population (imagine 231 million people dying today, to give that seemingly small number the scale it deserves) and brought entire cities to rubble. And this against an extremely capable enemy with genocidal aims, who nearly won. And without missing a beat we then entered into the cold war where everybody woke up realizing that there was a very real chance that their life could end on this day due to imminent nuclear war. Not some abstract 'doomsday clock' nonsense, but literally both sides actively positioning and aiming their nukes at one another ready to go off at a moment's notice - something that genuinely nearly happened multiple times, children practicing drills against nuclear disaster, and regular families building nuclear survival bunkers. Today we live in a bit of a paradox. Relative to most any time in the past, we live better than ever. Yet people are less satisfied than ever. And I think there's a simple reason. Imagine Star Trek. What would really happen if we had e.g. holodecks? You can do anything, anybody, become anything, anybody, etc. And you would never need, or want, for anything. You would have no conflict, no animosity, and no hope for change since you already have everything. Want to know what the Great Filter of the Fermi Paradox is? Comfort. This would destroy absolutely all meaning in life for most people. People need to want. It provides a clean explanation to so many things. This issue we're discussing, upper class young adults on twitter tirelessly spending their days trying to find things to be offended about - or failing that taking offense on behalf of people they know nothing about, billionaires who continue to work 12 hour days to expand their wealth to no real point, and so on. [1] - https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/series?seid=AVHWPEUSA065NRUG https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/series?seid=AVHWPEUSA065NRUG [2] - https://www.ehstoday.com/safety/management/good_times_toll https://www.ehstoday.com/safety/management/good_times_toll
crazygringo 7y ago
Sorry, but you should look at what jobs used to be like. Back-breaking work on the farm. Mind-numbing and body-destroying assembly line work that could cut off your hand. Construction work without any of the safety standards we now have. Alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking was sky-high. Any way you slice it, the quality of jobs today is tremendously higher than in the past, and people are not being paid less. True, job tenure is no longer as long-term as it used to be, and probably doesn't come with a pension, but the flip side is that it's also never been easier to find a job and leave a bad one, and you can manage your own 401(k) that won't disappear if your employer goes bankrupt.
- AndrewKemendo 7y ago
  The argument you make isn't wrong but it's also irrelevant to the currently displaced because they weren't doing "back breaking dangerous manual work." As the article points out, a big chunk of the shift is from white collar predictable work, to unstable, no benefit gig work. So the argument falls apart the same way as the "People in Africa are starving so be lucky you have food" argument to your 4 year old does. You might be right, but it's an argument that doesn't actually address the lived reality of the person.
- megaremote 7y ago
  > Any way you slice it, the quality of jobs today is tremendously higher than in the past, and people are not being paid less. Really? What about 40 years ago? Jobs were a lot easier, and you could buy a house and raise a family on one income. Why do you ignore that period of time, when workers had it good?
- Tsubasachan 7y ago
  Indeed. My grandfather worked at a coal mine and after that he laid tram rails with his bare hands. This was during the reconstruction decades after WW2. I don't know how things are exactly in the US but my country is wealthier than ever. Hundreds of thousands of people are retiring so there are tons of jobs going to be around.

perfunctory 7y ago

A while ago I created a poll about BS jobs which unfortunately didn't attract much attention. With N=8, most HNers have bullshit jobs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17880159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17880159

majewsky 7y ago
This poll is missing a crucial option, "Don't know". What I noticed in bigcorps is that they do the same stuff that small startups do with way more people. What a startup does with 3 people, bigcorp needs 60 people for that. But when you look at it from up close, it's incredibly hard to tell which of those 60 people are the ones that are actually needed.

rjf72 7y ago

Contrary to intuition, the average number of hours people work has completely plummeted as well. It's down more than 250 hours a year since the 1950s. [1] At a 40 hour work week that means we now take a bit more than an extra 1.5 months off per year, compared to then. And on topics on forums such as these when you get into physical jobs such as, e.g. plumbers, people bemoan the physical exertion of these jobs and claim the workers are destroying their bodies. OK. Now let's go back to those 'less stressful times.' In the fifties you were looking 7 injuries per 100 workers, and a nation wide average of around 15,000 on-the-job deaths a year. [2] The total workforce back then was only about 62 million. That's 1 in every ~4,100 workers being killed on the job per year. Part of the reason for the rise of occupational safety rules is that so many people were dying on the job that it was hurting the economy! And this is without even getting into the political differences of the times. In the 1950s people were still just getting over a world war that killed 3% of the entire world's population (imagine 231 million people dying today, to give that seemingly small number the scale it deserves) and brought entire cities to rubble. And this against an extremely capable enemy with genocidal aims, who nearly won. And without missing a beat we then entered into the cold war where everybody woke up realizing that there was a very real chance that their life could end on this day due to imminent nuclear war. Not some abstract 'doomsday clock' nonsense, but literally both sides actively positioning and aiming their nukes at one another ready to go off at a moment's notice - something that genuinely nearly happened multiple times, children practicing drills against nuclear disaster, and regular families building nuclear survival bunkers. Today we live in a bit of a paradox. Relative to most any time in the past, we live better than ever. Yet people are less satisfied than ever. And I think there's a simple reason. Imagine Star Trek. What would really happen if we had e.g. holodecks? You can do anything, anybody, become anything, anybody, etc. And you would never need, or want, for anything. You would have no conflict, no animosity, and no hope for change since you already have everything. Want to know what the Great Filter of the Fermi Paradox is? Comfort. This would destroy absolutely all meaning in life for most people. People need to want. It provides a clean explanation to so many things. This issue we're discussing, upper class young adults on twitter tirelessly spending their days trying to find things to be offended about - or failing that taking offense on behalf of people they know nothing about, billionaires who continue to work 12 hour days to expand their wealth to no real point, and so on. [1] - https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/series?seid=AVHWPEUSA065NRUG https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/series?seid=AVHWPEUSA065NRUG [2] - https://www.ehstoday.com/safety/management/good_times_toll https://www.ehstoday.com/safety/management/good_times_toll

crazygringo 7y ago

Sorry, but you should look at what jobs used to be like. Back-breaking work on the farm. Mind-numbing and body-destroying assembly line work that could cut off your hand. Construction work without any of the safety standards we now have. Alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking was sky-high. Any way you slice it, the quality of jobs today is tremendously higher than in the past, and people are not being paid less. True, job tenure is no longer as long-term as it used to be, and probably doesn't come with a pension, but the flip side is that it's also never been easier to find a job and leave a bad one, and you can manage your own 401(k) that won't disappear if your employer goes bankrupt.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago
The argument you make isn't wrong but it's also irrelevant to the currently displaced because they weren't doing "back breaking dangerous manual work." As the article points out, a big chunk of the shift is from white collar predictable work, to unstable, no benefit gig work. So the argument falls apart the same way as the "People in Africa are starving so be lucky you have food" argument to your 4 year old does. You might be right, but it's an argument that doesn't actually address the lived reality of the person.
megaremote 7y ago
> Any way you slice it, the quality of jobs today is tremendously higher than in the past, and people are not being paid less. Really? What about 40 years ago? Jobs were a lot easier, and you could buy a house and raise a family on one income. Why do you ignore that period of time, when workers had it good?
Tsubasachan 7y ago
Indeed. My grandfather worked at a coal mine and after that he laid tram rails with his bare hands. This was during the reconstruction decades after WW2. I don't know how things are exactly in the US but my country is wealthier than ever. Hundreds of thousands of people are retiring so there are tons of jobs going to be around.