A few months ago I joined Amazon Prime, so for $75 it give me free 2 day shipping on most items. The thing that amazes me the most is how much that it has increased my spending on Amazon- or conversely how much it has shifted me from buying stuff from brick and mortar stores. It is cutting probably almost half of my purchases from Home Improvement stores, drugstores, etc. It is so much more efficient than driving to the store, finding the item in the store (or having to go to a different store) and then getting home and realizing I forgot something..
This article got me wondering further about where all the worlds low skilled labor would make a living in the coming years:
http://www.businessinsider.com/50-percent-unemployment-robot-economy-2013-1
And back to Amazon for a moment – even they are working to automate as much as possible:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-30/amazons-robotic-future-a-work-in-progress
I realize that for hundreds of years people have had this worry about technological advancements, but I am hard pressed to think of a low skilled job sector that is not faced with competition from automation. So for young, low skilled, or under educated people, where do they get their start? I have to think retail jobs and even warehouse jobs are or will be on the decline, and for low skilled manufacturing you are competing with the rest of the world.
Here is a chart I put together from data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of historical unemployment by age group:
Is it a coincidence that the unemployment rate gap for those under 24 has increased in the last few years? And this appears to be a global phenonenom – Spains youth unemployment rate is over 50%:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21180371
So maybe we are in the early stagest of an economic evolution – or revolution. It will be interesting to watch Spain and the rest of the eurozone deal with this unemployment problem, because we will likely be dealing with the same problems soon.
One small thought which I do not mean to imply is the entire problem.
How much of the problem is older people continuing to work because they cannot afford to retire?
I work with a woman who is in her late 70’s who is just now going to retire and ONLY because she physically cannot work anymore.
Here is an article
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/business/economy/number-of-those-working-past-65-is-at-a-record-high.html
After reading that article it does look like that could be a factor. If I had more time it would be interesting to do a chart showing unemployment as a percentage of GDP – which would flatten out the impact of business cycles.