Technology has decreased the amount of time it takes for you to do your job.
So much so that your company learned it could fire the guy next to you (or let him quit and not replace him, however you like to look at it) and make you do his work, since you're more productive with new tools.
Remember, it's not about letting you work less hours, it's about their labor costs (I wonder if there's correlation between Executive Compensation and the increased use of technology to replace labor -- the money goes somewhere). If you can replace half your HR department with good software run by the other half, no one's hours are changing, but the company is saving a ton of money.
I ultimately think that this is the future of technology:
Jobs replaced by technology are wholly not being recreated by it. Maybe at a factor of 2 gone per 1 gained. I wish real stats could be done on this. The drive of technology is one of making human effort redundant.
I was hoping this article would be about the fact that software/technology/etc is replacing labor for far less money. About how labor wholly cannot compete with software and computer assisted/run assembly lines and 3D printers and whatever else we invent. About how recessions incite businesses to look for cost-cutting measures, and how those businesses are latching onto software and smarter machinery to replace expensive labor.
Your arguments assume that the number of companies with jobs is fixed; that the same technologies that increase productivity for existing employers can't be used by individuals to create new businesses.
This web site that you're posting on is dedicated to entrepreneurs who create businesses in their home offices without the need for a big corporation to back them and provide HR, Accounting, and other overhead services. That revolution in new business model opportunities is afforded by the advances in technology that your thesis is decrying.
"This web site that you're posting on is dedicated to entrepreneurs who create businesses in their home offices without the need for a big corporation to back them and provide HR, Accounting, and other overhead services. That revolution in new business model opportunities is afforded by the advances in technology that your thesis is decrying."
I think you misunderstand: This site, us, these people: we're in the business of making a 1000 person company into a 10 person company.
What do you think happens to that other 980 people?
That's my point. Yes, that is what we here do. We create novel ways of doing things better, or in another light: we replace copious amounts of human labor with technology equivalents.
I'm not decrying the trend, either. I'm calling attention to it: We have to realize what is happening and adapt as a culture.
I do not think we will ever return to 4% unemployment. I think a critical mass of technology has been hit in a number of industries where re-adding the number of employees lost in a recession never happens. I think that structural unemployment number is going to keep rising until we confront the hard questions about how exactly we approach labor in this country.
So much so that your company learned it could fire the guy next to you (or let him quit and not replace him, however you like to look at it) and make you do his work, since you're more productive with new tools.
Remember, it's not about letting you work less hours, it's about their labor costs (I wonder if there's correlation between Executive Compensation and the increased use of technology to replace labor -- the money goes somewhere). If you can replace half your HR department with good software run by the other half, no one's hours are changing, but the company is saving a ton of money.
I ultimately think that this is the future of technology:
Jobs replaced by technology are wholly not being recreated by it. Maybe at a factor of 2 gone per 1 gained. I wish real stats could be done on this. The drive of technology is one of making human effort redundant.
I was hoping this article would be about the fact that software/technology/etc is replacing labor for far less money. About how labor wholly cannot compete with software and computer assisted/run assembly lines and 3D printers and whatever else we invent. About how recessions incite businesses to look for cost-cutting measures, and how those businesses are latching onto software and smarter machinery to replace expensive labor.