Jobs

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its related technologies — machine learning and the metaverse — represent a watershed in the evolution of the global economy. Like other such shifts, its emergence is likely to favor certain interests, notably a handful of technology giants, the media and a small cadre of highly skilled programmers. Everyone else faces economic danger, certain to roil domestic and international politics in coming years. Eighty-two percent of millennials fear AI will reduce their earning ability — and they are right to be worried. The first group to lose will be the usual suspects: factory and warehouse workers as well as professionals with largely routinized occupations suited to automation.

Cockburn was on one of his regular jaunts through LinkedIn this week, on the lookout for more gainful employment than the Speccie currently offers him. During his perusal, one word kept catching his eye on the profiles of other users: “Rescinded.” Prospective employees are deciding to denote when a company had made them a job offer — and then changed their mind after a change in corporate hiring plans. The cryptocurrency wallet company Coinbase appears to be one of the biggest offenders. Ashutosh, a software engineer, posted the following: After considering several factors, I had chosen to join Coinbase over pursuing a PhD.

All is not well with the economy. It’s true that 390,000 jobs were added last month, exceeding estimates, while hourly income is up 5.2 percent since May 2021. However, analysts guessed unemployment would drop a tenth of a percent, which didn’t happen. Gas prices keep rising, as GasBuddy.com reports a 43 cent jump over this time last month. It’s enough of a problem that OPEC has agreed to increase production in July and August. The economy remains stricken by inflation, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen issuing a mea maxima culpa earlier this week. “I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take," she told CNN on Tuesday.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its August jobs report this morning and the numbers are pretty dismal. While the unemployment rate dropped 0.2 percent to 5.2 percent, the number of new jobs created was only 235,000, far below expectations of about 700,000. In June the number was 962,000 and in July a whopping 1.1 million. And the unemployment was not spread evenly across the population. Unemployment went down for adult men and whites, but black unemployment went up significantly, from 8.2 percent in July to 8.8 percent in August. The surge in the Delta variant of the coronavirus is widely thought responsible.

It wasn’t the exact same speech, but the words were familiar and the message was identical. President Biden addressed the disappointing April jobs report on Monday, just as he did on Friday. Economists had expected the economy to create as many as one million jobs in that month, but employers added just 266,000. Biden insists that everything will be all right. It takes time to recover from a once-in-a-century pandemic, he said, urging patience both days and no doubt sensing the political danger a slowing economy puts on his ambitious infrastructure package and other spending proposals. On Friday, the president asserted that his $1.9 trillion stimulus package was a long-term play: 'We never thought that after the first 50 or 60 days everything would be fine.

The worst day of my childhood was in 1995 when my father lost his job. He worked close by as a cook in a local restaurant, just a mile or two from our modest home in Cranston, Rhode Island. I recall what it felt like when he broke the news:  I felt my legs start to go under me. I still see him walking up the small hill that led to our home: his head down, his spirit crushed. I still see the look on his face, a man whose purpose had been taken away. My mother cried. We had to sell our house. Nothing would ever be the same. I suspect many American families know what I’m talking about. Nearly 30 million have lost their jobs in just six weeks alone. Millions more will follow.

What delicious reading it makes going back over Paul Krugman’s missive in the New York Times on the morning after Donald Trump was elected in 2016. ‘Global recession with no end in sight...when are markets going to recover? A first pass answer is never...’ Those words should be carved into a façade somewhere in Wall Street and held up for ever after as an example of hubris of economic forecasters. In liberal circles nowadays there is always misery. The end of the world is always around the corner, where from economic calamity in the global capitalist system, climate change, rise of fascism, AI taking our jobs and creating mass unemployment, or whatever. But let’s get back to the real world for a moment.