The End of Work

It’s started already, though we are only now getting around to thinking of the predicament of how you have a successful society when jobs are in serious decline. It’s not hard to figure out the pattern. The industrial age is dying, and along with it the majority of jobs that produced massive goods through assembly line production. Jobs protected by union support are now slowly disappearing. Technology is now making a mockery of old-time production and manufacturing techniques in how quickly it can regenerate. Governments and large businesses have bought into the paradigm of endlessly searching for low-cost suppliers (even if they are overseas), the ongoing practice of endless cost-cutting, leasing whatever is required, pushing down wages and benefits so as to save even more costs, disposing of entrenched business hierarchies in favour of contracted positions such as CEOs. Add to all this the reality that an increasing amount of employment is centered in the service sectors, with a multitude of low-paying, part-time opportunities, and we have a future that looks grim at best.When we get our heads around the reality that some 75% of the work forces in most developed countries engage in work that is largely repetitive, then we realize how vulnerable they are to being replaced by automation. And office workers and managers are under threat as corporations restructure to take advantage of new technologies.For years now economists have argued that we’re just going through a transitional phase and that the jobs lost will return once markets expand. This has been so in the past and they assume it will occur again. But it’s not happening, and still we just keep hoping for the best. As manufacturing jobs are increasingly lost, we are seeing now that 8 out of 10 workers in many cities are employed in the service sector (banks, Wal Marts, accounting, airlines, retail, etc.).Presently a great number of these jobs are making way for advanced technologies. Economists say nothing on the horizon constitutes enough of a new growth area required to absorb the jobs being lost. And automation is shedding jobs faster than markets can expand to create new jobs. The troubles that have descended upon world markets are primarily confidence-based, but few are facing or even talking about the world moving towards a shrinking labour market – something which could have just as serious a consequence as the loss of investment confidence.As consumer and public debt skyrockets in tough times, and since it coincides with significant job loss in most wealthy nations like Canada, what are we going to do about it? Places like Britain are bringing in tight austerity measures, but since 1992, 90% of jobs created have been temporary or part-time. How will they provide the kind of wages necessary to purchase products and get the economy moving again? It isn’t feasible as it presently stands. Every technological advance implemented continues to increase wealth – lots of it – but it is no longer finding its way into middle-class pockets as has been historically true. With a decreased demand for labour worldwide, how will the economic rewards derived from the new technologies be more equitably distributed, especially since people are experiencing difficulty adding their own talents to the products?Where does all this leave us? And why aren’t our policy makers or politicians opening up about the challenges we are about to endure? Steady work is quickly becoming the privilege of the few. It will be hard to grow our way out of deficits and debt if high unemployment remains with us. Business firms no longer compress the wages of their employees. Like most advanced societies in which they sell products, the gap between rich executives and poorer workers is steadily widening. In fact, firms are competing all the time to gain and keep valuable performers at the executive levels, rewarding them with stock options, bonuses, health club memberships, etc., while at the same time slashing the wages and benefits of everyday workers. Some understand why things function this way, but such behavior hardly induces confidence in the labour sector.You’d think, then, with all this going, on that the powers that be would be developing detailed plans about how to reignite the employment sector in this country, but, again, it’s not really transpiring. It’s no help to easily assign blame; instead we need to have a serious discussion about the nature of work and how we can have a productive workforce when both the number and nature of jobs are in serious flux. The green jobs of tomorrow are already late in arriving, and politicians are aware that citizens themselves say they desire environmental reform yet refuse to want to pay for it. Part-time jobs without benefits will hardly produce a productive and innovative workforce.John Kennedy said once: “We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.” Okay, if that’s so, how will it be done? We are entering dangerous new territory. The ground is shifting under out feet, and still there is no great plan to re-establish the vitality and presence of hard work. Perhaps the new jobs will appear and this discussion won't be as necessary. But they are not here and we'd better talk about high unemployment as a fact of life.