For the life of me I can't fathom how moving the bulk of our workforce to temporary employees benefits us as a nation in the long run. Is there anyone here who an provide any metric to support this as a good thing?
I do see where some wish to blame the consumer for this trend which is a bit surprising to me. That idea seems paradoxical in that the majority of people do not have good paying would, by necessity, want things to cost less. Yet if you propagate this throughout ecosystem you end up in a viscous cycle where companies, in order to meet lower price points, squeeze their employees which only propagates the cycle.
Most of us on this site are not the type of unskilled laborers who are currently impacted by this. Yet such trends have a way of working their way up the the food chain so to speak. Companies will trumpet "think of the consumer" as a way to depress or wages.
It is the consumer tho'. I can't count the number of people I know who are very vocal about workers rights, human rights, living wage etc but happily wear clothes and carry personal electronics made in sweatshops. Ironically, it's the rabid capitalist types who are willing to pay for locally produced items made by skilled workers.
Stuff made in sweatshops pays a wage to extremely poor workers. Stuff made locally pays a wage to workers in a developed country with reasonable safety net protections. Why would you expect the human rights defender to privilege the comparatively wealthier worker over the poorer one?
In the abstract I can see a huge benefit to having a sizable portion of the workforce be temporary employees. Assuming we have a reasonable guaranteed minimum income, then there is not the looming threat of unemployment that makes temporary employment so bad. However, temporary employment does provide a more mobile workforce that can much more quickly re-allocate itself to new demands, and give individuals more freedom to switch jobs.
That is idealistic yet doesn't address the needs of the workers. The reality is these jobs are terrible for the workers, gives them no stability and no benefits. The whole point of the move towards temporary workers has nothing to do with "flexibility" and everything to do with costs, it is done solely to allow the employers to skirt offering them healthcare, vacation, and retirement benefits.
I don't think it's going to benefit anyone. In the short term companies can save money on employees and sell products at razor-thin margins while still making huge profits and people will be happy to buy them. In the long term though, when the current generation of workers with stable jobs will be replaced by a generation of temps, there will be no middle class, no one to buy products, as cheap as they might be.
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For the life of me I can't fathom how moving the bulk of our workforce to temporary employees benefits us as a nation in the long run. Is there anyone here who an provide any metric to support this as a good thing?
I do see where some wish to blame the consumer for this trend which is a bit surprising to me. That idea seems paradoxical in that the majority of people do not have good paying would, by necessity, want things to cost less. Yet if you propagate this throughout ecosystem you end up in a viscous cycle where companies, in order to meet lower price points, squeeze their employees which only propagates the cycle.
Most of us on this site are not the type of unskilled laborers who are currently impacted by this. Yet such trends have a way of working their way up the the food chain so to speak. Companies will trumpet "think of the consumer" as a way to depress or wages.
It is the consumer tho'. I can't count the number of people I know who are very vocal about workers rights, human rights, living wage etc but happily wear clothes and carry personal electronics made in sweatshops. Ironically, it's the rabid capitalist types who are willing to pay for locally produced items made by skilled workers.
Stuff made in sweatshops pays a wage to extremely poor workers. Stuff made locally pays a wage to workers in a developed country with reasonable safety net protections. Why would you expect the human rights defender to privilege the comparatively wealthier worker over the poorer one?
Probably because those rabid capitalist types actually have the money to afford those locally produced items.
In the abstract I can see a huge benefit to having a sizable portion of the workforce be temporary employees. Assuming we have a reasonable guaranteed minimum income, then there is not the looming threat of unemployment that makes temporary employment so bad. However, temporary employment does provide a more mobile workforce that can much more quickly re-allocate itself to new demands, and give individuals more freedom to switch jobs.
That is idealistic yet doesn't address the needs of the workers. The reality is these jobs are terrible for the workers, gives them no stability and no benefits. The whole point of the move towards temporary workers has nothing to do with "flexibility" and everything to do with costs, it is done solely to allow the employers to skirt offering them healthcare, vacation, and retirement benefits.
If only there was a way to provide said benefits decoupled from employment. Almost like a Utopia, I know. Too bad it's not possible.
(I'm a Euro dude, sorry, could not resist.)
I don't think it's going to benefit anyone. In the short term companies can save money on employees and sell products at razor-thin margins while still making huge profits and people will be happy to buy them. In the long term though, when the current generation of workers with stable jobs will be replaced by a generation of temps, there will be no middle class, no one to buy products, as cheap as they might be.