
Gig economy is the mass exploitation of millennials - pje
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/gig-economy-is-the-mass-exploitation-of-millennials-1.3379569
======
taylodl
I don't think it's as much a generational issue vs. a haves vs. have-nots
issue. It's just more likely that younger folks fall into the have-nots
category and thus gives the appearance of a generational issue. To wit, I can
provide lots of anecdotes of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers suffering in this
economy in the same manner as the Millenials described in this article. What
they have in common is their (lack) of economic power. You should acquaint
yourself with the term "monopsony" and how it relates to a labor market.

~~~
crdoconnor
The fact that the content of the story implies strongly that the author is
well aware of this makes me wonder if the editor exerted a bit of pressure on
him to change the title.

I wonder if advertisers like seeing the word 'millenial' in the title of
stories.

~~~
justboxing
> I wonder if advertisers like seeing the word 'millennial' in the title of
> stories.

Yes, they certainly do.

> The Importance of Millennials to Brands

> In the U.S. alone there are about 80 million millennials, making them larger
> than any other demographic in the country. There are also more Millennials
> in the workforce than other generations, with an expected $1.4 trillion in
> disposable income by the year 2020.

> There hasn't been such a fixation on marketing to a specific generation
> since the baby boomers, and so many consumers outside of this demographic
> are left wondering why they're being ignored.

Source: Why Are Marketers So Obsessed With Millennials?
[https://outline.com/Ybsrdv](https://outline.com/Ybsrdv) [ad clutted-free
link]

------
ppeetteerr
When a city or a people succumb to the gig economy, they reduce the protection
set up by the state to keep people either employed and well feed or unemployed
and taken care of by the state. Conveniently, gig workers are no longer
counted against the unemployment numbers because they are no longer looking
for work, so the state looks great and their currency rises.

Cities across the world have been turning a blind eye on Uber/Lyft and their
traditional taxi drivers are suffering. Cities are turning a blind eye on
Airbnb/VRBO and their tax payers are suffering. This is just the beginning as
delivery services are becoming gig-iffied and so are other business models.

Soon, some semblance of job security and minimum wage will be laughable
qualities only attributed to state employees the same way we treat pension
funds today.

~~~
candiodari
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_States)

If you read that and you will quickly realize that most of the changes have
been to ignore large portions of the unemployed population. Essentially, if
you become unemployed, you are counted starting when you are 1 month
unemployed (not from the day you lose your job) and you stop being counted in
the 7th-8th month of your unemployment (depending on a few factors, can be up
to 12 months).

So the vast majority of drop in unemployment rate is government lying. Gig
economy actually increases the unemployment rate.

Why ? Because it enables the long term unemployed to be employed for a short
while, then "lose the job" for valid reasons (ie. lack of demand), and then
get unemployment benefits again for 8 months. I'm convinced many unemployed
have realized this, and use it. This enables them to not lose benefits and as
a side effects reintroduces them to the stats. But the vast majority of the
time, they're unemployed. And some periods of the year, e.g. Christmas, it's
easy to pull of.

~~~
dragonwriter
You've linked to info about unemployment benefit and you are pretending that
rules about eligibility for those benefits have something to do with the
_unemployment rate_. But, that's completely wrong.

See, e.g.,
[https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm) –
particularly the second question, which addresses directly the mistake
underlying your entire post.

~~~
0x445442
[http://www.shadowstats.com/](http://www.shadowstats.com/)

If the spirit of the post was a critique on the Gubment's official
unemployment rate, I'd say the post was on point.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If the spirit of the post was a critique on the Gubment's official
> unemployment rate, I'd say the post was on point

Since every single claim it makes about the method in which things contribute
to the official unemployment rate is false (because it is based on rules for
qualifying for unemployment benefits that are irrelevant to being counted as
unemployed in the unemployment rate), I can't see any reasonable way it can be
described as an “on point” critique.

It’s conclusionay align with a belief that you bring with you from elsewhere,
but that doesn't make it a good argument for that conclusion, irrespective of
whatever merit that conclusion has separate from the actual argument offered
in the post.

~~~
candiodari
Thanks for that link with the very detailed explanation. That's really
informative, even though it's pretty in line with what is reported on
financial websites.

So this does not improve my opinion on the government's falsification at all.
Especially how the numbers have changed over the years is telling (see later).

Even discounting changing the reporting, it seems extremely unfair in a number
of ways, for instance how part-time work is counted (anyone who made or did
something attempting to make 1$ in the past week is employed. Worked 2h
babysitting ? You're employed)

(especially this affects a LARGE number of workers)

To make matters worse, anyone "temporarily unemployed" is considered employed.
For instance, if you're a freelance construction worker that didn't do
anything for a month, you're employed.

Anyone employed by a bankrupt business is employed, despite of course very
likely neither working nor getting paid.

Furthermore they demand active job search methods only. So anyone who's passed
by every employer in their town ... is not unemployed from that point forward.

This is, of course, bullshit. Reality is that anyone who wants a job but
doesn't have one is unemployed. Anybody forced to work less than they want to
is partially unemployed (this is a large number of people). This is not
measured at all.

And the changes in methodology are the really telling part. An example:

> Up until the Clinton administration, a discouraged worker was one who was
> willing, able and ready to work but had given up looking because there were
> no jobs to be had. The Clinton administration dismissed to the non-reporting
> netherworld about five million discouraged workers who had been so
> categorized for more than a year. As of July 2004, the less-than-a-year
> discouraged workers total 504,000. Adding in the netherworld takes the
> unemployment rate up to about 12.5%.

One might wonder, was the purpose of the government's changes to increase
accuracy, or was it to falsify the number ? Well one can easily distinguish
between these 2 goals.

If the goal was increased accuracy, then the BLS would have been instructed to
adjust it's historical time series, at least in estimation, so that
comparisons would be fair.

If the goal was falsification, then numbers from the old and new methodology
would be reported, with no or hidden references to the changed methodology.

The situation is that the latter is what was done [1]. The difference in
methods is downplayed to an extreme degree, clearly indicating that
falsification was the goal.

The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations all changed the methodology of
counting the numbers, and especially Obama, but also Clinton are guilty of
claiming what are very clearly statistical artifacts from changing the
methodology as accomplishments of their administrations.

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/u-3-unemployment-rate-
was-...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/u-3-unemployment-rate-
was-4-point-5-percent-in-march-2017-u-6-was-8-point-9-percent.htm?view_full)
<\- zero mention of methodology changes

------
candiodari
One issue is that the "new" left just can't get over open borders. It is in
fact a major point of friction between traditional socialists and the more
modern ones. The problem with that is as the article describes:

> Young workers must accept that our fate relies on our co-operation. If I
> accept an unpaid internship, I have undercut my generation. I have not only
> devalued my labour but that of my peers too. I am complicit in the
> denigration of my generation.

This same issue applies, as can be easily observed in any large city, to
immigrants.

Having a fair labour market is fundamentally incompatible with free movement
of goods (meaning we need to heavily tax your ipad if we are to have more
equality) and with the free movement of labour (meaning equality and open
borders are fundamentally incompatible _).

_ one might say, but not if we have worldwide socialism. That is right to an
extent, but that effectively means that long as there are a few exploitative
states we can't have socialism and fair labour markets anywhere else.

Needless to say, there is lots of propaganda about how it's "racist" to be
opposed to large scale people movement, even though the economic reason for it
is obvious in any large city : to enable the economic exploitation of the weak
by the powerful.

I'm just hoping that at some point we can accept that "I want closed borders
to improve labour conditions" will be recognized as obviously the non-racist
opinion (and open borders, since it's real effect is exploitation of "the
other", recognized as the racist option)

~~~
dragonwriter
> One issue is that the "new" left just can't get over open borders. It is in
> fact a major point of friction between traditional socialists and the more
> modern ones

(1) Internationalism over nationalism is old socialism; if anything.

(2) I've seen very few leftists (new or traditional) who supported “open
borders” as a short-term policy in any modern advanced country; I've seen many
who support reforms of immigration rules (e.g., in the US, aligning slotd
within existig overall quotas better with demand by removing or altering per
country limits as a means of reducing the incentive for illegal
immigration)—or simply opposed adding additional restrictions—with those
positions attacked by the nativist right as “open borders”, but very little
actual support for anything like actual open borders.

~~~
candiodari
I feel like you're misrepresenting things on both counts.

About (1) I would say that internationalism in the old socialism is not AT ALL
about open borders. Rather it is about causing socialist revolutions within
every country. The movement should cross borders, not people and certainly not
goods. In fact, I believe they are against international trade except where
absolutely necessary.

About (2) I can only say that I have. It has come to the point that you cannot
say in leftist company even basic things like "illegal immigrants should not
be allowed to remain". Talking about "immigration must be limited strictly to
below the point where it destroys the labour market" is likely to get you
banned. Is your experience different ?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Talking about "immigration must be limited strictly to below the point where
> it destroys the labour market" is likely to get you banned. Is your
> experience different ?

My experience is that leftists generally have no _ideological_ problem with
efforts to restrict the overall level of immigration (I've seen several
arguments that the current system of hard quotas and tossing money at
enforcement aren't a cost-effective means of doing that, but that's a
different issue), and, speaking of the US, in particular often favor more
sharply limiting (or even abolishing) employment-based immigration (including
non-immigrant programs like the H-1B.) They tend to prefer loosening existing
numerical restrictions on family reunification immigration.

I've not seen any significant support for genuinely open borders, and I
_myself_ am the only even left-leaning (I won't call myself a leftist) person
I've encountered who proposed any (though limited—based on fees rather than
quotas) legal immigration outside of existing preference categories.

The kind of oversimplifying statements you suggest which treat immigration as
a whole and the sole concern in immigration policy being the market effects on
wage labor are something that I can see being unwelcome on the left, whether
old or new, but not because either favors open borders.

------
prepend
I think part of the issue is how much income is derived from “gigs.” I know a
few friends (comically all genx, not millennial) who drive for uber, do
thumbtack jobs, fiver, stuff like that. They have full time jobs and do this
on the side. I don’t know what percent of income, but they are happy as it’s
extra income.

This is very different than full time giggers.

~~~
CodeWriter23
If they’re driving for Lyft or Uber in the UberX/Standard Lyft category, they
are arithmetically challenged. Or perhaps in a new market where the economics
are “throw money at anyone who will drive”.

In an established market, the economics of driving for Lyft turn out to be
worse than minimum wage, and and continued participation is reinforced by
magical thinking about hitting that jackpot - Prime Time.

~~~
prepend
I live in a top 10 city. I get about 50-75 cents per mile net before bonuses
and whatnot. Now if you look it at a straight business this is terrible as the
standard mile deduction is 53.5 cents per mile. So sometimes you technically
lost money just by driving.

However, my car payment is fixed. I didn’t buy a new car for Uber. My marginal
costs are quite low at about 5 cents/mile in gas and 12 cents/mile in extra
wear and tear. My insurance difference is negligible because I don’t drive
that much.

So I have coats of 20 cents and make between 30 and 55 cents per mile. This is
especially good for taxes as I get to deduct 53.5 cents per mile even though
my costs are much lower. So I net about $10/hour after expenses and taxes.
That’s not bad for an extra 10-20 hours per week whenever I feel like it.

My arithmetic is certainly different than others as there’s lots of variables,
but certainly not challenged with my math.

I think different people just value their time more. But having the option to
make $10 whenever I have free time is better than watching tv or whatnot.

~~~
jbattle
Your car payment is fixed, but you are likely to need to replace the car X
months/years sooner if you put miles on it more rapidly. So the question isn't
whether you need to spend extra on your _current_ car because of Uber, its
whether you'll need to spend more on _future_ cars (i.e. buy one sooner)

~~~
prepend
That’s the 12 cents per mile in depreciation. This is maintenance, warranty
costs, earlier wear out, etc. So far this hasn’t resulted in any real costs,
just depreciation from the miles so it’s getting saved away for exactly my
next car.

It’s odd how many people I have to go through this math with. I guess people
can’t break out the different expenses. Again, cars vary so if you have a high
cost car rather than Prius it will be harder.

It can theoretically be less than minimum wage, but even so. There’s no
minimum wage that lets me work between 0-20 hours a week and take off as many
days as I want, whenever I want.

That’s why it’s cool for part time. But using it as your primary income is
much different. But I’d rather do it than work retail.

------
everdev
Or, "Gig economy is the natural evolution of free markets".

With the Internet, now I can find the best logo designer in the world, rather
than within 30min driving distance. When the supply of labor goes up, prices
go down.

I'm sure just the top X% of gig workers reap the most rewards in the gig
economy, but it's a free market situation and if they weren't being rewarded
enough they'd raise their rates or stop working. That doesn't seem to be the
case though.

~~~
pessimizer
> When the supply of labor goes up, prices go down.

When labor protections go down, prices go down. Remember, the cheapest person
to do most of the physical, low-skilled work you want doing is still a child.

~~~
frabbit
Well, some of it can be quite skilled. But you still want children doing it
because it is a valuable intern experience:
[https://www.inquisitr.com/365377/yes-your-iphone-really-
is-m...](https://www.inquisitr.com/365377/yes-your-iphone-really-is-made-by-
children-foxconn-admits-to-child-labor/)

------
UncleEntity
When I was a youth almost all my peers had jobs which paid less than a "living
wage" or were going to college (or, commonly, both). Just the way life works
unfortunately...

