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I've had an observation about modern day unemployment.
Back during the Great Depression, and even during the late '70s and early '80' unemployment figures were a bit higher, in some areas, then today. The difference is that today we have the internet. We have chat rooms, community sites, Monster.com, and even instant video conferencing. The tools we have today were not even imagined decades ago. Do we take them for granted now?
Just think of how much easier it is today, to find a job, then it was twenty of 80 years ago. We can join dozens of job employment web sites, and instantly find employers who are looking for people from all across the US, and overseas. Today, we can create truly professional looking resumes from our home computer and email them all across the world.
How much higher would unemployment be today, if we did not have the modern era communication resources at our finger tips. How much more diminished would our ability to search for a job be, if we had to rely solely on word of mouth, or local newspapers and the monthly trade magazines?
I've had an observation about modern day unemployment.
Back during the Great Depression, and even during the late '70s and early '80' unemployment figures were a bit higher, in some areas, then today. The difference is that today we have the internet. We have chat rooms, community sites, Monster.com, and even instant video conferencing. The tools we have today were not even imagined decades ago. Do we take them for granted now?
Just think of how much easier it is today, to find a job, then it was twenty of 80 years ago. We can join dozens of job employment web sites, and instantly find employers who are looking for people from all across the US, and overseas. Today, we can create truly professional looking resumes from our home computer and email them all across the world.
How much higher would unemployment be today, if we did not have the modern era communication resources at our finger tips. How much more diminished would our ability to search for a job be, if we had to rely solely on word of mouth, or local newspapers and the monthly trade magazines?
I'm not sure. I understand your argument that it makes finding jobs easier. But, I think an argument could be made that the internet costs jobs. Many people buy things on the internet making bricks and mortar stores less neccessary, causing less construciton jobs and fewer people are need to staff an internet business (in general) than a bricks and mortar business.
The internet makes it easier to outsource jobs as well.
I'm not sure. I understand your argument that it makes finding jobs easier. But, I think an argument could be made that the internet costs jobs. Many people buy things on the internet making bricks and mortar stores less neccessary, causing less construciton jobs and fewer people are need to staff an internet business (in general) than a bricks and mortar business.
The internet makes it easier to outsource jobs as well.
I agree.
Years ago truckers would run from coast at coast and have a hard time finding the loads to back haul. They would come home empty - just burning up fuel and suffering from any maintenance cost. The internet came along and everything was great (at first) - they went out to the opposite coast and found loads to pull home. That was in the beginning. However; eventually the competition drove the rates so low that it was better to come home empty than bring the freight 3000 miles. I think that it has stabilized somewhat today?
It is one thing to compete with just one or two other truckers for loads. It is another thing to compete with all of your competition at the same time. You have to have a very sharp pencil and know your equipment to make any money.
The same could probably be said for any business that the internet touches.
Wait you mean folks would have to get off their butt and actually go apply for jobs in person to get their checks every week? That in itself is too much "work" for some it seems. Easier to just fire off your resume over the web and go back to playing facebook.
Years ago truckers would run from coast at coast and have a hard time finding the loads to back haul. They would come home empty - just burning up fuel and suffering from any maintenance cost. The internet came along and everything was great (at first) - they went out to the opposite coast and found loads to pull home. That was in the beginning. However; eventually the competition drove the rates so low that it was better to come home empty than bring the freight 3000 miles. I think that it has stabilized somewhat today?
It is one thing to compete with just one or two other truckers for loads. It is another thing to compete with all of your competition at the same time. You have to have a very sharp pencil and know your equipment to make any money.
The same could probably be said for any business that the internet touches.
I find that interesting about the truckers.
Two days ago, as I was driving home on I-20 from out Tyler way, I noted what appeared to be a pretty high percentage of truckers who were not carrying a load (either driving just the cab itself, or towing a large flatbed). I mentioned to my wife that the truckers must be having trouble finding a 'return load'. Perhaps part of the reason is as you suggest: too low rates being offered.
I don't think it is easier to find a job at all especially when there aren't any computer or not.If there were no PC's it might actually force people to get up and walk around,take trolley or the train to find a job .It might actually have an added effect of losing weight .My computer could very well go right out the window ,this world is way to reliant on a machine that has both created a handful of jobs and lost thousands of others .I would take a world without PC's anyday.
Actually, the internet has made it harder to find a job. Today, the unemployed in America face the longest stretches of involuntary unemployment since at least the Great Depression. The average duration of unemployment stands at nearly 40 weeks. This is the highest that has ever been recorded since the government started keeping track in 1948:
Those unemployment numbers we see posted by the mainstream national media are false because they only count people who are receiving unemployment benefits. The millions of grossly underemployed people working part-time minimum wage jobs aren't counted as unemployed. People who work 8 hours a week part-time at $7.50 an hour are erroneously counted as "employed" by the BLS. Also, people who have fallen out of the labor force who have plain given up looking for work are also not counted in the "official unemployment" number of 9%. Real unemployment when underemployment and discouraged workers are counted is closer to 25-30% nationwide. In states like California, the unemployment rates are a lot higher. In certain cities, like Detroit, the real unemployment number is closer to 50%!
The impersonality of internet job applications and email resumes leaves you faceless amongst dozens to hundreds to thousands of applicants. Back before all applications were done on the internet a mere few years ago, you actually had to go to businesses to apply in person. Establishing an in-person presence and rapport plus the luck of a good first impression with potential employers usually was the glue that solidified your future employment with that company.
Sending out thousands of resumes with your first and last name, address, employment history and phone number is also highly dangerous. Today's climate is conductive to scams like identity theft. Who knows if all of those email addresses from job listings you send your sensitive information to are really legit?
What also has made finding work harder in the digital age is the amount of negative things that can be dug up about an individual from just knowing their first and last name. This is the reason why many people have changed their Facebook names from their government birth certificate names to alternate nicknames and aliases. But the Big Brother/Matrix-like nature of Facebook is finding a way around this with new scary privacy killing technologies like facial recognition. Employers and HR people routinely check Facebook, Twitter and online public arrest records to see what you are "really like" as a person. Unfortunately, sites like Facebook have been becoming more intrusive in terms of privacy every year. In the beginning, people used to Facebook to post immature things like drunken party photos and share questionable private things amongst friends. Sadly, immature Facebook postings from years ago are like tattoos that can never be completely removed from your digital face. Today, there is no telling what is truly private or not on these social networking sites.
Employers today also use any means to weed out applicants because of the hundreds of responses they receive for single want ads for single positions. This is the reason why most employers ask for your credit score when applying for a job. This is highly unreasonable seeing as most job openings ask for an expensive high level of education, coupled with immaculate credit and ZERO stretches of unemployment. The system is rigged against the common man in the digital age.
Last edited by goldenchild08; 09-29-2011 at 01:38 PM..
I'm not sure. I understand your argument that it makes finding jobs easier. But, I think an argument could be made that the internet costs jobs. Many people buy things on the internet making bricks and mortar stores less neccessary, causing less construciton jobs and fewer people are need to staff an internet business (in general) than a bricks and mortar business.
The internet makes it easier to outsource jobs as well.
So, your argument it seems is that because of the internet, businesses can reach more customers, from all across the world, and that costs jobs. Sorry, I don't buy into that.
I suppose the invention of the phone book did the same thing. With the phone book, people could call a store to see what they had in stock, and no longer had to drive around the city, or state, going w/o the product they needed, or settling for a lesser product, because they were not lucky enough to stumble into the correct business establishment.
Jobs were seemingly lost because of both inventions. We lost jobs because we could use the phone book call in to a store, to see what products they had in stock, and then again, because we could look thru the internet page of a store, to essentially see what services the provided or what they had in stock.
I don't think it is easier to find a job at all especially when there aren't any computer or not.If there were no PC's it might actually force people to get up and walk around,take trolley or the train to find a job .It might actually have an added effect of losing weight .My computer could very well go right out the window ,this world is way to reliant on a machine that has both created a handful of jobs and lost thousands of others .I would take a world without PC's anyday.
Wow, truly amazing.
So internet sites that cater to employers looking for qualified employees to hire, like the local municipalities run, and sites like Monster.com, are useless?
I know many people who used the internet and found jobs on the other side of the country, and the employer shipped all their household effects, and even their car, for them, and gave them time off to find a place to live.
I don't think it is easier to find a job at all especially when there aren't any computer or not.If there were no PC's it might actually force people to get up and walk around,take trolley or the train to find a job .It might actually have an added effect of losing weight .My computer could very well go right out the window ,this world is way to reliant on a machine that has both created a handful of jobs and lost thousands of others .I would take a world without PC's anyday.
And I'll bet there were thousands of people who thought the exact same way about that new fangled thing called the telephone...
Now people just pick up the receiver instead of getting in their horse and buggy to come over to talk...
Technology has and always will be a double-edged sword but one thing is clear, you either accept technology or get run over...
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