4 ms·

The divide in wealth is surely something that will continue in America. I think in less than 15 years, big cities will have at least Hong Kong's wealth disparit

The divide in wealth is surely something that will continue in America. I think in less than 15 years, big cities will have at least Hong Kong's wealth disparity. Put simply, I just can't think of the middle class jobs of the future. Even the labor laws in Italy are becoming more lenient in face of a down economy. I think that companies like Exec, Lyft and TaskRabbit provide a window into what lower class jobs are in the future.

danmaz74 14y ago
"Even the labor laws in Italy are becoming more lenient in face of a down economy": Would you care to explain how this is related? Just curious, as an Italian.
- martinshen 14y ago
  Employment law in Italy (as you probably know) makes it really difficult to lay off workers. Recently, a new law passed allowing companies to let go of up to 4 people per quarter (I'm a bit fuzzy). I think there will be increased relaxness in labor law in Europe in general.
  - danmaz74 14y ago
    What I'm curious about is how the relaxing of Italian labor laws (technicalities aside) is a proof of the demise of the middle class. By the way, the reasoning behind that change is that it should bring more middle-class jobs, not less.
jiggy2011 14y ago
I think this is the most important question in politics right now. Politicians seem to think that our current woes can be fixed by tweaking tax codes and interest rates and hoping that the private sector will pick up the slack eventually. However I don't think that this is a foregone conclusion. With such high unemployment I would have expected services to have gotten worse due to business being understaffed. In fact the opposite seems to have happened, I can access services and products much more easily and conveniently than ever before. Apart from essentials like energy and housing which have become proprietorially more expensive. I'm not even sure programmers are safe, salaries at SV startups may be high now but I wonder how much of that is because of companies desperately making a landgrab for digital space. For developers not wanting to play the high stakes game and simply wanting a middle class income from writing enterprise java code it's going to become increasingly hard to compete with growing numbers of skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living.
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  > it's going to become increasingly hard to compete with growing numbers of skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living. This argument has been made for a very long time, and I don't think it's any closer to being true today. Overcoming the 1) time differential, 2) language barriers, and 3) culture differences of working overseas takes a very special kind of person. They absolutely do exist, and in my experience they tend to simply move to the US where they can command hefty salaries. Just my opinion, but I think skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living might be propping up the salaries of stateside devs. The higher you pay stateside devs, the more money you're "saving" in comparison by hiring a team somewhere else.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Yes and no, I can see this gap tightening as foreign teams learn better english to gain competitive advantage. Also translation software is improving and I see more contract jobs where the client is from china or some other country. Time differential can be easily overcome if developers simply move their sleep schedule around. I've developed software for people in different timezones and it's not a problem if the software is clearly specified. Since I can just send an progress report email and wait for them to pick it up. I agree that the best developers will probably seek to emigrate but at some point immigration will be tightened up and more talented devs will stay in their home country. And out sourcing is just one piece of the pie. With more people being encouraged to learn to code (which I think is great) programming jobs will face more competition.
    - Domenic_S 14y ago
      That's really handwavy. When we get Star Trek level translation, or perfect specs, or devs decide to sleep all day and work all night (because who needs a family?). Every very-large business I know of has offices and teams in other countries, and it works best when they're "just" another office. Branch in SF, branch in NYC, branch in London, branch in Chennai, branch in... When you turn to other countries to grow your business, you can win; when you turn to other countries to replace the workers you built your company with you usually lose. IMO, YMMV, etc.
Domenic_S 14y ago
> I just can't think of the middle class jobs of the future. If by "middle-class jobs" you mean a job that pays 1) enough to keep you off the government dole and 2) not enough to pay for a new mercedes, I can think of a lot of them: -Knowledge worker (programmer, project manager, analyst, etc) -Some retail, e.g., middle-management of most large retail stores. -Energy worker, as population grows demand for energy increases -Housing work & maintenance (plumbers, electricians - the work is blue collar but those guys make great wages) -Healthcare worker, again as population grows demand increases. Nurses make great money. edit: wow, almost forgot these: -Law enforcement/park ranger -Government worker -Fire, paramedic
- streetwiseherc 14y ago
  Very few (if any) of those you have listed are "unskilled" blue collar jobs. The kind that my grandparents were able to raise 4 and 5 children families on. We've traded all of our union factory jobs for fast-food, minimum wage jobs that you can't support a family on. And for what? Are our electronics/clothes/food/cars any cheaper or a better value?

danmaz74 14y ago

"Even the labor laws in Italy are becoming more lenient in face of a down economy": Would you care to explain how this is related? Just curious, as an Italian.

martinshen 14y ago
Employment law in Italy (as you probably know) makes it really difficult to lay off workers. Recently, a new law passed allowing companies to let go of up to 4 people per quarter (I'm a bit fuzzy). I think there will be increased relaxness in labor law in Europe in general.
- danmaz74 14y ago
  What I'm curious about is how the relaxing of Italian labor laws (technicalities aside) is a proof of the demise of the middle class. By the way, the reasoning behind that change is that it should bring more middle-class jobs, not less.

jiggy2011 14y ago

I think this is the most important question in politics right now. Politicians seem to think that our current woes can be fixed by tweaking tax codes and interest rates and hoping that the private sector will pick up the slack eventually. However I don't think that this is a foregone conclusion. With such high unemployment I would have expected services to have gotten worse due to business being understaffed. In fact the opposite seems to have happened, I can access services and products much more easily and conveniently than ever before. Apart from essentials like energy and housing which have become proprietorially more expensive. I'm not even sure programmers are safe, salaries at SV startups may be high now but I wonder how much of that is because of companies desperately making a landgrab for digital space. For developers not wanting to play the high stakes game and simply wanting a middle class income from writing enterprise java code it's going to become increasingly hard to compete with growing numbers of skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living.

Domenic_S 14y ago
> it's going to become increasingly hard to compete with growing numbers of skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living. This argument has been made for a very long time, and I don't think it's any closer to being true today. Overcoming the 1) time differential, 2) language barriers, and 3) culture differences of working overseas takes a very special kind of person. They absolutely do exist, and in my experience they tend to simply move to the US where they can command hefty salaries. Just my opinion, but I think skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living might be propping up the salaries of stateside devs. The higher you pay stateside devs, the more money you're "saving" in comparison by hiring a team somewhere else.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Yes and no, I can see this gap tightening as foreign teams learn better english to gain competitive advantage. Also translation software is improving and I see more contract jobs where the client is from china or some other country. Time differential can be easily overcome if developers simply move their sleep schedule around. I've developed software for people in different timezones and it's not a problem if the software is clearly specified. Since I can just send an progress report email and wait for them to pick it up. I agree that the best developers will probably seek to emigrate but at some point immigration will be tightened up and more talented devs will stay in their home country. And out sourcing is just one piece of the pie. With more people being encouraged to learn to code (which I think is great) programming jobs will face more competition.
  - Domenic_S 14y ago
    That's really handwavy. When we get Star Trek level translation, or perfect specs, or devs decide to sleep all day and work all night (because who needs a family?). Every very-large business I know of has offices and teams in other countries, and it works best when they're "just" another office. Branch in SF, branch in NYC, branch in London, branch in Chennai, branch in... When you turn to other countries to grow your business, you can win; when you turn to other countries to replace the workers you built your company with you usually lose. IMO, YMMV, etc.

Domenic_S 14y ago

> I just can't think of the middle class jobs of the future. If by "middle-class jobs" you mean a job that pays 1) enough to keep you off the government dole and 2) not enough to pay for a new mercedes, I can think of a lot of them: -Knowledge worker (programmer, project manager, analyst, etc) -Some retail, e.g., middle-management of most large retail stores. -Energy worker, as population grows demand for energy increases -Housing work & maintenance (plumbers, electricians - the work is blue collar but those guys make great wages) -Healthcare worker, again as population grows demand increases. Nurses make great money. edit: wow, almost forgot these: -Law enforcement/park ranger -Government worker -Fire, paramedic

streetwiseherc 14y ago
Very few (if any) of those you have listed are "unskilled" blue collar jobs. The kind that my grandparents were able to raise 4 and 5 children families on. We've traded all of our union factory jobs for fast-food, minimum wage jobs that you can't support a family on. And for what? Are our electronics/clothes/food/cars any cheaper or a better value?