…beyond hope now:
But everything is OK really:
In general, just because one company goes bust doesn’t indicate much about an economy. In fact, in a robust capitalist, or mostly capitalist, economy, you would expect businesses to go bust all the time as other businesses that are more efficient in one way or another supplant them.
I’m not saying the economy is good or bad, I’m just saying that this one example isn’t indicative of either one of those choices.
6 Likes
2 Likes
There seems to be a bit of a trend developing:
I giveth the thumb to Divitias and the thumb taketh away.
Interesting point. I have been watching the employment rates in the USA for some time. Well paid jobs are being replaced by low paid service jobs. The US government is giving tax incentives to change this but it’s going to be quite a challenge:
Almost half of U.S. workers between ages 18 to 64 are employed in low-wage jobs, the Brookings Institution found.
Not the sign of a strong economy where highly paid jobs are replaced by McJobs:
Tech layoffs were big news in 2022, and that’s looking set to continue in 2023, too, with major companies like Amazon and Salesforce already slashing workforces.
Divitias,
The younger folks I know are all getting into better job positions becoming nurses, IT people etc…Pay is going up in the US see the service sector inflation numbers.
The tech layoffs are being offset by new startups and a huge demand in the economy for people with tech backgrounds. Most of the layoffs are related to an overextension of sorts because of different covid era economic demands that are not outdated.
Headlines are not evidence. The stories behind the headlines cite stats…be careful with stats…
1 Like
I’m sure that’s true. I’m equally sure it’s an artifact of the country moving to a service economy, with (almost) no union protections. Service jobs inherently pay less than manufacturing jobs, although that mirrors the beginning of the industrial age when income disparity was also increasing and most people lived in “low wage jobs.”
I suspect, over very long time periods, that the same dynamic will follow - we are now seeing the beginnings of unionization movements in some service industries: Starbucks, notably, but also in health care (traveling nurses), other fast-food, and even certain sector of retail and even in some geographies, gig economy workers.
As happened with manufacturing, as one group gets better wages, employers have to compete for a diminishing labor pool and raise wages even if they’re not directly unionized. At the moment there is a surfeit of label which works the other way, but that may not always be the case.
1 Like
Interesting point Goofyhoofy. The service economy is responsible for the growth of low paid jobs IMHO and I hope that they manage to raise standards.
If I was still in academia, I would be looking to do a research degree in the rise and decline of the middle class. I think that the UK middle class owes its existence to industrialization. Before that there were master and the rest with just a few that could be deemed middle class. Now that we in The West have exported much of our industrial base the middle class jobs are going with it.
There have been some studies done on this already:
The middle class lost ground in nearly nine-in-ten U.S. metropolitan areas examined
As was mentioned North America and Europe and turning into service economies and workers are more and more being hired to do a specific job and then released after finishing their contract, much as they were in Tudor times here.
1 Like
Here’s the thing thought. For the last decade tech has been unusually stable. Yes, layoffs happened, but not to the extent I’ve become accustomed to. Not only that, but the last several years has seen a lot of hiring. Too much hiring, frankly. And that is starting to be corrected right now.
I’ve been in tech since '89. What is happening in the tech world right now does not frighten me. Maybe it does to those who aren’t in this field.
2 Likes
I’m not frightened, just interested in what’s happening in the economies of North America & Europe.
North America should manage better than Europe as it has vaste natural resouces which we in Europe do not have.
If this is true, median wage would be dropping. But it isn’t. Median wage was stagnant from about 2000 through 2015, but beginning in 2015 it started rising, then there was a covid spike which receded quickly, but we still appear to be on roughly the same trajectory that began in 2015. Maybe those well paid jobs are being replaced with other well paid jobs, but perhaps just not quite as well paid? I mean the software guy who worked at FaceBook for $220k/yr who got laid off and can only find a job for $180k/yr is still going to be okay.
2 Likes