mff@wuphys.UUCP (Mark F. Flynn) (04/03/84)
The way in which the unemployment rate is computed was indeed changed about a couple of years ago. It was publicly announced months in advance, so it's not like it was snuck in. I remember the difference as being more like .6%.
wmartin@brl-vgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (04/04/84)
Regarding the continuing discussion on unemployment:
For many years I have been hearing and reading much about unemployment,
but nowhere have I read or heard what seems perfectly obvious to me --
a) Unemployment means that there are fewer jobs available than there
are people available to perform these jobs, and
b) Given a continued rising population, and technology developing
BOTH new job opportunities AND more efficient ways of performing
previous jobs,
There MUST come a time when the maximum number of possible jobs is less
than the number of people to fit into these jobs, because, even though
new technology creates new jobs and new fields for jobs to develop
in, it is at the same time creating labor-saving techniques (automation,
robotics, whatever) that are decreasing the jobs available in the
previously-existing industries. The TOTAL number of jobs will peak
at some point and then start a steadily-downward trend. (New developments
might cause short-term increases as new technologies and industries
begin, but the efficiency-optimization techniques that have been applied
to older industries will inevitably be applied to these, thus reducing
those jobs also.)
So with more and more people living longer, unemployment is inevitable.
Possible solutions:
a) Fewer people.
b) Make-work jobs -- industries somehow prohibited from making themselves
efficient. This could only work if it was done world-wide, otherwise you
have the import-protection garbage and foreign undercutting we have seen
in many areas.
c) Redefine work, careers, labor, etc. -- people are changed to expect
not a 40-hour week and a 35-year-plus working life, but working one day
a week or a 5-year career, or some other method of spreading the jobs
among the population. Problems -- productivity related to pay, who pays
for all these "workers", general standard of living; can technology
provide all the goodies we all expect without us working to earn them?
d) Change the nature of work -- the rise of services instead of production.
Everybody takes in each others' washing. Can a society survive on this
basis? [The personnel on ship "B" of the Golgafrinchum (sp?) Ark Fleet,
if you recall the Hitchhiker's Guide...] You are my butler Monday, Wednesday,
& Friday -- I'm yours Tuesday, Thursday, & Saturday. Sunday we wash our
own backs... This just doesn't make it, intuitively...
Of these possible solutions, I vote for "a", and I've done my part --
I've been sterilized and I have no children. If I can do it, so can
everyone. Think of all the "problems" we now have that will vanish --
school issues (public vs. private, prayer, etc.) -- no school children!;
crime (most of it is committed by the young); environment -- fewer
people means less load on the ecosystem; energy -- plenty to go around
among fewer people; and so forth.
Objections to this all devolve down to religious issues -- "be fruitful
and multiply" commandments, or a belief in that there is some value in
continuing the human race ("manifest destiny" or "mankind's future
among the stars", etc.). Obviously, I don't believe this. [Sometimes
I wonder why I enjoy science fiction so much if I don't believe in the
desirability of the future existence of the human race -- oh, well,
I can choose to be inconsistent...]
This ought to start some sort of flamage, I suppose. Have fun!
Willmwm@ea.UUCP (04/13/84)
#R:wuphys:-11700:ea:10100022:000:2253 ea!mwm Apr 12 16:42:00 1984 /***** ea:net.politics / brl-vgr!wmartin / 6:34 pm Apr 4, 1984 */ b) Given a continued rising population, and technology developing BOTH new job opportunities AND more efficient ways of performing previous jobs, There MUST come a time when the maximum number of possible jobs is less than the number of people to fit into these jobs So with more and more people living longer, unemployment is inevitable. Possible solutions: c) Redefine work, careers, labor, etc. -- people are changed to expect not a 40-hour week and a 35-year-plus working life, but working one day a week or a 5-year career, or some other method of spreading the jobs among the population. Problems -- productivity related to pay, who pays for all these "workers", general standard of living; can technology provide all the goodies we all expect without us working to earn them? This ought to start some sort of flamage, I suppose. Have fun! Will /* ---------- */ The problems with this solution evaporate in light of the causes. To illustrate: Causes: Technology (Finagle ignore it) has gotten to the point where there are fewer jobs than people to fill them. Problem: Will a reduced work load (per person) still produce enough to support the population? Answer: Obviously, yes. Lets tie some (small) numbers to it. If you have a populace of 120 people, all having enough, but only jobs for 100 working 40 hours a week, you need 4000 work/hours a week to run your community. By reducing everybodies hours to 33 a week, you now have 3960 work/hours out of your 120 people. Of course, the economies of a capitalist society will make things balance out somewhere between these two, but it does work. In other words, the net result will be to reduce the number of hours a person has to work to keep himself alive. This has been happening ever since someone first put stick to dirt to plow a field. With luck, this will continue happening until nobody has to work unless they want to. Personally, I'm glad I don't live in the pre-industrial revolution days, when 60+ hour work weeks were common, or in a hunter-gatherer society, when it was more like 100+. I just wish I lived in the future, when <10 hours was the average. Lazy, and proud of it, <mike