You can't pick up a newspaper these days, or watch a news media broadcast that is not mentioning the problem of unemployment and job loss in the economy. For most observers, the problem is often oversimplified as as a result of the recession, and we only need policies to return those jobs. Few have argued that what we are witnessing is a fundamental shift in our concept of working and employment.
Mike Dorning, in his article in Bloomberg Businessweek cites U.S. employment data that is frightening. The portion of all men holding any kind of job in the U.S. is 63.5%, the lowest figure since 1948. Among prime working-age men between 25 and 54, 81% held jobs. In comparison in 1969, 95% of men in the prime working years had a job.
That's not all the bad news, Dorning points out. Men who do have jobs are getting paid less. After accounting for inflation, median wages for men ages 30 to 50 have dropped 27% from 1969 to 2009, which takes men's earning capacity at levels of the l950's.
The Washington Post notes that the U.S. is facing the longest hiring downturn since the Depression and the vast majority of the jobs are the result of permanent changes in the economy. That means those jobs are not coming back. New ones need to be invented.
Lawrence Katz, a Harvard professor of labor economics, cites a number of causes for the employment woes, including corporate cost-cutting by moving jobs overseas, and technology. While we may think these trends impacts blue-collar workers the most, it actually has the greatest impact on college educated white collar male workers, Katz contends. Another contribution to the problem is that unlike women who are pursuing advanced education in record numbers, men are not.
Marshall Brain, writing in his informative blog, cities the explosive growth in the use of robotics–not on the assembly line but in ordinary retail businesses, including McDonalds, Home Depot, and others. It is not uncommon now to get your food, money, gas, groceries, and other household items through a robotic kiosk.
Brain cites the principle of Moore's Law–that CPU power in microprocessor chips doubles every 18 to 24 months–to support his argument that a massive number of jobs will be replaced by technology and never return. He forecasts that almost all construction, manufacturing, transportation, whole, retail, and hotel and restaurant jobs will be lost to automation by the year 2050. This would create unemployment levels of up to 50%.
Sara Horowitz, founder and CEO of Freelancers Union, argues that the jobless future is already here. She points out that many people are already combining part-time work just to get by. In an article in Atlantic magazine, Horowitz says that as of 2005, a full 30% of the workforce has participated in this "freelance economy," and entrepreneurial activity has reached an all time high in 2010.
Many economists argue that the current economic problem is lack of consumer demand–lack of money to spend on stuff. But with the increasing decline of the middle class who spends most of that money, the problem won't be solved any time soon. So while politicians and business leaders chant for more jobs, the real issue is economic inequality to support sustained growth. It's not likely that the 45 million people at the poverty level in the U.S. will drive its economy to new prosperity.
Douglas Rushkoff, author of Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How To Take It Back, was interviewed by CNN.com. He proposed the notion that jobs are obsolete. He argues that it's not a bad thing that technology is replacing jobs.
Part of the public discourse has focused on employment as the solution to economic growth, but countries have in fact focused on productivity through technology not human labor, Rushkoff contends. The U.S. and Canada is productive enough to provide everyone sufficient shelter, food, education and health care without increased employment. The problem is the proceeds of productivity–economic wealth–are not equitably distributed. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that there is enough food produced in the world to provide the entire world's population with 2,720 calories per day.
So is the problem that we don't have enough "stuff" for everyone or that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove they deserve the stuff?
Let's remember that the concept of jobs is a relatively new idea. People may have always worked, but until the advent of corporate business in the Renaissance, most people worked for themselves,. The advent of the Industrial Age made most jobs as menial and unskilled as possible. As technology in factories was used to increase production and use less labor, so too has digital technology supplanted jobs today.
One of the biggest problems today we face is how to create full employment while pursuing technology that is intended to replace it.
Most work today is knowledge work, not making stuff. Knowledge work is a creative activity. Part of the issue of resolving the job-work issue is accepting basic human rights about essential stuff–food, shelter and health–and focusing work on the value we create that makes life meaningful, purposeful and fun.
One thing is for sure, the problem of unemployment and our view of work and jobs is undergoing a revolution, not just a minor hiccup or temporary recession.
