6 ms·

I'm admittedly rather ignorant on the topic, but before I commit a few days to researching this I thought I'd ask here: do job losses due to technological trans

I'm admittedly rather ignorant on the topic, but before I commit a few days to researching this I thought I'd ask here: do job losses due to technological transformations often happen during economic shocks, or is this just a one-off coincidence? The 2008 economic shock was triggered by (depending on your perspective, I suppose) lending large amounts of money to people who did not have the means to repay the loans, as well as the collateralization and sale of these debts in tranches of risk that were inaccurately calibrated. Is part of your thesis that this is somehow related to the emergence of the new economy? Is this an orthogonal but necessary trigger of job loss that causes the evaporation of old-economy jobs? Or is this unnecessary and merely coincidental?

prostoalex 15y ago
It's a coincidence. In the past decade or so we've witnessed a few industries lost to technology advancement - travel agencies, consumer electronics retail, newspapers. The way things are headed it's a matter of few years before titles such as 'real estate agent' or 'car salesman' are carrier around by significantly fewer people. Number-wise the real estate bubble provided plenty of jobs to people involved in construction, mortgage financing, mortgage brokerage, mortgage repurchasing, real estate sales, etc. Without the housing bubble we would've seen slow but steady drops in employment, with housing bubble we're just seeing the same effect in a more abrupt manner.
- dreamdu5t 15y ago
  Lost to technology advancement? Last time I checked, there were shitloads of travel agencies, retail outlets for consumer electronics, and newstands all over the city. Everybody does not shop on Amazon and use AirBnB.
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    I realize that 'shitloads' is a imprecise measure but there are significantly fewer travel agencies today than there were 10 years ago (as an example). If you were to break it down into 'single propieter' / 'corporate agency' you would find that single proprietor agencies have been reduced dramatically. For me the argument is convincing when technology changes the growth rate of a particular industry (in terms of jobs provided) to be negative.
  - prostoalex 15y ago
    Employment as a news stand operator != employment in newspaper industry. On retail - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_retailers_of_the_United_States#Electronics_stores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_retailers_of_th... do you honestly see more people selling HDTVs and BluRay players today than in 2001?
  - hkmurakami 15y ago
    If you recall, Circuit City vanished a few years ago after a several decades as a leading nationwide retailer. Part of this was surely caused by direct retail competition by Best Buy, Target, WalMart, but it would be reasonable to presume that at least a part of this was caused by technological advancement as well (it certainly couldn't have helped circuit city to have to compete with NewEgg and Amazon)
    - SystemOut 15y ago
      DIVX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX) was another important catalyst that helped Circuit City to fail. If you're interested read the link but the short of it was that it cost Circuit City over $100 million not to mention that anyone that was into home theater basically refused to shop there after this fiasco.
- guelo 15y ago
  The sad thing is that there is tons of work that the idle resources of the construction industry could be doing, such as fixing America's deteriorating infrastructure. But our elites have decided that it's better for them to stay idle.
  - Eliezer 15y ago
    Why, I can personally attest that this is true. I went to a meeting of our elites and someone said, "Hey, you want to put the idle resources of the construction industry to work on fixing America's deteriorating infrastructure?" and some other guy was like, "Nah, it's more evil if we just have them stay unemployed" and then there was a lot of chuckling. That's totally how the world works. </lies>
    - guelo 15y ago
      who was it that decided that there would be no more spending on infrastructure? It wasn't the common voter.
  - invalidOrTaken 15y ago
    I don't know whom you mean by "the elites," but I suspect they could care less about the activity or lack thereof of construction guys. I suspect "how do we pay for x" has higher priority.

prostoalex 15y ago

It's a coincidence. In the past decade or so we've witnessed a few industries lost to technology advancement - travel agencies, consumer electronics retail, newspapers. The way things are headed it's a matter of few years before titles such as 'real estate agent' or 'car salesman' are carrier around by significantly fewer people. Number-wise the real estate bubble provided plenty of jobs to people involved in construction, mortgage financing, mortgage brokerage, mortgage repurchasing, real estate sales, etc. Without the housing bubble we would've seen slow but steady drops in employment, with housing bubble we're just seeing the same effect in a more abrupt manner.

dreamdu5t 15y ago
Lost to technology advancement? Last time I checked, there were shitloads of travel agencies, retail outlets for consumer electronics, and newstands all over the city. Everybody does not shop on Amazon and use AirBnB.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  I realize that 'shitloads' is a imprecise measure but there are significantly fewer travel agencies today than there were 10 years ago (as an example). If you were to break it down into 'single propieter' / 'corporate agency' you would find that single proprietor agencies have been reduced dramatically. For me the argument is convincing when technology changes the growth rate of a particular industry (in terms of jobs provided) to be negative.
- prostoalex 15y ago
  Employment as a news stand operator != employment in newspaper industry. On retail - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_retailers_of_the_United_States#Electronics_stores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_retailers_of_th... do you honestly see more people selling HDTVs and BluRay players today than in 2001?
- hkmurakami 15y ago
  If you recall, Circuit City vanished a few years ago after a several decades as a leading nationwide retailer. Part of this was surely caused by direct retail competition by Best Buy, Target, WalMart, but it would be reasonable to presume that at least a part of this was caused by technological advancement as well (it certainly couldn't have helped circuit city to have to compete with NewEgg and Amazon)
  - SystemOut 15y ago
    DIVX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX) was another important catalyst that helped Circuit City to fail. If you're interested read the link but the short of it was that it cost Circuit City over $100 million not to mention that anyone that was into home theater basically refused to shop there after this fiasco.
guelo 15y ago
The sad thing is that there is tons of work that the idle resources of the construction industry could be doing, such as fixing America's deteriorating infrastructure. But our elites have decided that it's better for them to stay idle.
- Eliezer 15y ago
  Why, I can personally attest that this is true. I went to a meeting of our elites and someone said, "Hey, you want to put the idle resources of the construction industry to work on fixing America's deteriorating infrastructure?" and some other guy was like, "Nah, it's more evil if we just have them stay unemployed" and then there was a lot of chuckling. That's totally how the world works. </lies>
  - guelo 15y ago
    who was it that decided that there would be no more spending on infrastructure? It wasn't the common voter.
- invalidOrTaken 15y ago
  I don't know whom you mean by "the elites," but I suspect they could care less about the activity or lack thereof of construction guys. I suspect "how do we pay for x" has higher priority.