I've just written an article (waiting for publication) lamenting the same thing from almost the exact opposite angle: Lots of jobs, no money. Here in Scotland

I've just written an article (waiting for publication) lamenting the same thing from almost the exact opposite angle: Lots of jobs, no money. Here in Scotland, the government has just given £10.6m in 'support' to Amazon to encourage them to open a distribution centre (actually they already had two, but anyway...) The Scottish government is trumpeting this as a recognition of Scotland's "highly skilled workforce". Actually it's 750 jobs (gov't estimate) mostly on 1% above the legal minimum wage, with no real prospects. And to cap it all, Amazon don't even pay tax in the UK. All their sales go through a Luxembourg company. So it seems ridiculous that the taxpayer is subsidising the operations of a highly profitable, tax-avoiding company. Effectively we're buying jobs. Meanwhile, Borders is bankrupt (loss of 1,200 jobs), and other booksellers (Waterstones paid £2m in corporation tax last year) are struggling. Relating it back to this post - highly skilled work requires less people. Low skilled work requires less people AND pays less money. But it's progress, and I fear it's simply an economic reality. I don't know what the solution is. Note: I don't want to litter this post with climbdowns, moderations etc. I'm not disparaging Amazon jobs, and 750 people working instead of unemployed is good. But we can't win in a race to the lowest paid unskilled labour. And Amazon's labour can't even be offshored anyway, so who are we bidding against?