Last week on KCRW’s Which Way, LA, I heard that while the national unemployment rate is about 10%, in California it’s 12.2%. Mike is correct in that we need to all become more entrepreneurial and create value for ourselves. Technology is forcing us all to evolve.I do think we can take cues from the industrial revolution. It’ll all swing back eventually… I think on the other end of this, we’ll see some pretty amazing career options. The jobs the “robots” can’t do… yet.
Maybe we’re entering a creative renaissance in careers and schooling. I’d like to think so.mikehudack:
tedr:
Put another way, in 2009 a workforce of 800 people is capable of doing the work of 1,000 people in 1999. To compensate business must either fire 200 people or create enough new work (and value) to support another 200 people. It’s as if they hired 200 new people over the last two years.
Companies are now laying off that labor excess. And they’re unlikely to hire them back without significant growth to justify it. So: those people either need to start new businesses (if no one else is creating enough value to give you a job, create your own value) or they need to get better at what they do so that they’re more employable than other people.
Either way I’m afraid that I have a pretty pessimistic outlook on the jobs market for the next few years. It’ll improve. Unemployment will decline below 10%. But I’m not sure that the absolute numbers of employed people is going to increase dramatically until people get much more entrepreneurial. People will simply lose the workforce when they find it’s increasingly hard to get a job. So unemployment numbers will go down, but it’ll effectively be an illusion.
This is an interesting challenge for policy makers. There are ways to combat this trend (not least by encouraging folks to start small and medium-sized businesses, especially ones with high failure rates but huge potential returns). I wish it was more obvious that the Obama Administration was taking this possibility seriously. Or am I just full of hot air?
ZADI DIAZsigns o’ the times
Unemployment is a trailing indicator. Also, I think we’ve had overemployment for the last couple years. By which I mean that businesses hadn’t fired enough people (or created enough new work for people) to compensate for technology-induced increases in productivity.Put another way, in 2009 a workforce of 800 people is capable of doing the work of 1,000 people in 1999. To compensate business must either fire 200 people or create enough new work (and value) to support another 200 people. It’s as if they hired 200 new people over the last two years.
Companies are now laying off that labor excess. And they’re unlikely to hire them back without significant growth to justify it. So: those people either need to start new businesses (if no one else is creating enough value to give you a job, create your own value) or they need to get better at what they do so that they’re more employable than other people.
Either way I’m afraid that I have a pretty pessimistic outlook on the jobs market for the next few years. It’ll improve. Unemployment will decline below 10%. But I’m not sure that the absolute numbers of employed people is going to increase dramatically until people get much more entrepreneurial. People will simply lose the workforce when they find it’s increasingly hard to get a job. So unemployment numbers will go down, but it’ll effectively be an illusion.
This is an interesting challenge for policy makers. There are ways to combat this trend (not least by encouraging folks to start small and medium-sized businesses, especially ones with high failure rates but huge potential returns). I wish it was more obvious that the Obama Administration was taking this possibility seriously. Or am I just full of hot air?
What do you think about this? Personally I don't agree at all, I see everyday, big box stores, that I think rely too much on our technological advances just so the customer can be more speedy at the cost of the everyday joe Blows job. It's much easier to hire one person to look over 3 or 4 self check outs and tell Nancy Sue to screw off. Maybe if we didn't rely on this tech and we weren't a HURRY UP I WANT IT NOW country maybe we could get more people employed. Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way....
