OT- Jobs and the economic recovery

Mike (WA) · Jun 8, 2011

Was in a bank this morning that I don't usually frequent, and commented to the clerk (whom I know) about all the empty desks, and hoping the economy would turn upward and fill them up again. She said something I hadn't really thought about- Those desks will probably never be filled, and are empty because of electronics and automation, not the economy.

30 years ago, a substantial number of clerks were kept busy manually calculating and posting transactions on paper forms. Then they went to entering transactions at a computer terminal, now the software does the transactions without any human interaction. Takes a couple of "lobby people" now, one to interact with customers for check orders, etc., and one to take care of the stuff that doesn't get taken care of by the computer. But if the general transaction workload increases, they don't hire another person, they update the computer.

Most of the banks around here have about 1/2 to 2/3 of desks in the lobby empty. And they probably will stay that way.

What do we do when there just isn't enough work for everyone to do? I think we're in the middle of finding out.

NY 986 · Jun 8, 2011

I've wondered about the same thing. Regardless of the party in power in Washington I have often wondered what the true rate of unemployment and underemployment is in this country and has been over last couple of decades. As a society I don't know that it is a good thing to have an increasing number of people that have too much time on their hands and prone to getting in trouble.

Two Dogs · Jun 8, 2011

I recently went inside my bank for the first time in years instead of the drive through. I also commented to the lady at the deposit box vault about the emptiness. Two tellers out of about ten or twelve windows. Two or three stuffed shirts twiddling their thumbs surrounded by several empty desks. She said that's the way it is now. TDF

Mike (WA) · Jun 8, 2011

That's the problem- fewer and fewer people working, more and more folks with no jobs to get (and probably couldn't compete for jobs if there were any)- so what do you do with the chronically unemployed- let them starve? Not sure even a guy as conservative as me could do that- so are they just on the dole forever? How are we going to sustain that expense? We're printing money now without even selling bonds to back it- what's the "end game" here? Total economic collapse?

Everybody wants to cut govt. spending, but when you try to pin them down, there just isn't much to cut, without rioting in the streets.

I have a friend who is a surgical nurse- without hesitation, she says we need "death panels". Just because we can keep folks alive indefinitely doesn't mean we should. Billions and billions are spent to keep 80+ year olds alive for another 3 months, and more billions spent on keeping genetically defective folks alive so they can drool in a wheelchair. Maybe we need a little more "survival of the fittest", like in nature.

Gun guru · Jun 8, 2011

The real rate of unemployment is likely 25% (at least in Michigan) The unemployment benefits in the state of Michigan are too good. I know of guys that were laid off for over a year.
In Michigan it is $362/week + the Federal gov. kicks in another $30 per week or something. Get $9.80 per hour for 40 hours per week to sit on your butt. No incentive to get a job, or at least claim that you are. I also am told that a person can get a maximum of 99 weeks of unemployment.

thurlow · Jun 8, 2011

Lady whom I 'know' is the Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer in a local bank; she also heads Human Resourses. Not many years ago, they had 86 employees; now they're in the mid-60s and the bank is considerably larger now than then. But here's the weird part: our county is chronically # 1 or # 2 in the state in unemployment rate, hovering around 20%, but when she 'needs' a new employee, they're nowhere to be found.

Brad Buchanan · Jun 8, 2011

Hmmmmm, a fellow named Adolph subscribed to that theory.

Your opinion is yours but what if YOU become politically incorrect and the regime in charge decides that you are 'genetically defective'?

Brad

showcrop · Jun 8, 2011

Banks and heavy industry along with many other jobs have declined tremendously, but you don't have to look far to see industries that didn't even exist 15 years ago. Many are related to recreation, leisure, personal things that we all need now, that were unheard of twenty years ago. But don't worry, didn't you see on the AM news that our leader is coming out with a new plan to create jobs, and that he is going to present it this afternoon?

Nate V. IA · Jun 8, 2011

I don't understand why we can't make people on unemployment do something for the money we are giving them, picking up trash in along the highway comes to mind. We should also give people food, not food stamps that they can get cash back from and then buy cigs and beer with it.
Nate

Ray · Jun 8, 2011

A friend of mine works for the sprint phone company.The main building they use for phone service switches is probably 100ft square.A few years ago it was full of work spaces and switches.He took me into the building last week.There was a computer and automated switches in the center 10 ft of the building,the rest was empty.I asked about a chair setting by the computer.He said that is where law inforcement listens in on phone conversations,or they do if they get bored.

Gun guru · Jun 8, 2011

Did you know that many states borrow money from uncle sam to pay unemployment benefits. And Michigan was the FIRST state to start borrowing.
Michigan is in real bad shape, not as bad as Calfornia or Illinois.
It may all come to a crashing halt too......Grab your guns/ammo and lock the doors. Be stocked up on food too.

Mike (WA) · Jun 8, 2011

This is quite a bit different than ole Adolph. His criteria was race, and he sent perfectly healthy people to the gas chamber to pursue his perfect Aryan race. I'm just saying that if someone is so ill that they'll never be able to survive on their own, we need to look at how much we want to spend to keep them going.

But your point is well taken- it could become a blurred line, depending on the politics.

Mike (WA) · Jun 8, 2011

Geez, not ANOTHER one. Enough, already. Nothing's working. And throwing money we don't have at the problem isn't doing much good, either.

Traditional Farmer · Jun 8, 2011

Those that stand around waiting for someone else to develop and offer them a job will always be at the bottom of the Totum Pole in the work world or won't have a job at all.The way to stay employed is to do something for yourself then you can pick and choose who you want to work for you.

ILLEFTY · Jun 8, 2011

Wal Mart's hiring part time help

JK-NY · Jun 8, 2011

There are alot of reasons banks have less help- increased efficiency thru use of computers, people doing "online banking" and direct deposit etc. Less people using the bank in person needs less help.Similar to US postal Svce loosing volumes of business to "online bill paying" email etc and result is less "snail mail". Also a factor may be the amount of people out of work with no pay checks to cash.( I guess they still need to cash unemployment check )

Brad Buchanan · Jun 8, 2011

Mike, thanks for a measured and well thought out response. Can be rare here somtimes.

I work with elderly and disabled folk by choice as a volunteer and I think if more people saw the people and not the disability they might think differently. (end of rant)

What really turns my crank is 99 weeks of unemployment. 12 weeks is unemployment..99 weeks is welfare.

Brad

RandyB(MI) · Jun 8, 2011

Traditional Farmer , you took the words right out of my mouth! It's new bussiness starts and existing bussiness expansion that is the best indicator of economy. They both stink and have for quite a while. People need to quit looking for another "time card" to punch! Read my lips...'taint gonna happen!!! Don't people ever get tired of making the "boss" rich and then complaining about it all day??? That man ain't no smarter than anyone else. 80% of the population are "followers". Not saying that as a put-down or anything because it's probably the way they were raised , but it also explains why 80% either have a "job" , lost a "job" or expect someone to give them a "job". Sooner you get that word out of your vocabulary the better off you will be! I learned a skill and provided that skill as a service to the public for most of my working life. (self employed) Not easy but very rewarding when the whole check for services comes to ME. I call the shots , vacation when I wanted to , unruly customer...kick them to the curb. Harder you work the more you make. Not carrying along some dead-beat working along side me doing half the work and getting same pay. Steady pay check every week? Only if you took out a large "operating capitol" loan to start. Bad mistake , false security and the reason a lot will fail after 1st year. Yearly salary...very good. Takes self diciplin and lots of it. If all that means is getting up in the morning...better get a "job".

Anonymous-0 · Jun 8, 2011

Not necessarily.

A lot of states are issuing debit cards for unemployment compensation payments. Indiana has used that method since at least 2006, I believe...and they're not alone.

LAA · Jun 8, 2011

The company I work for has way more office help than they did 30 years ago, most of them in IT disciplines and computer record keeping of various kinds. There is a lot more governmental regulations to comply with now than then and everybody requires proof, and or records.

Tony in Mass. · Jun 8, 2011

That is a new scare tactic, but been around since health insurance industries got into high gear. A 'patient's future' depends on the meeting between, trusted ol' GP, specialist, head nurse, and insurance rep. You or your loved one's life hangs on what these people had for breakfast, thier ego, workload, or concern about $$$$. It is not a policy idea of the future, it has been around awhile, no one noticed till lately, and it isn't treated as a fact, but a political football....

NCWayne · Jun 8, 2011

Having read the responses so far I think alot of them miss the point made here. That point, I think, is that there is a high rate of unemployeement due to the bad economy but the economy isn't the only thing contributing to it. In other words when computers and automation start taking jobs, as in the example used here, that there is going to be a high unemployeement rate regardless of the economy. Ultimately the whole situation is an endless circle, automation takes jobs and people don't have money to buy goods because they have no job. Because the have no job they can't buy goods therefore the economy suffers. The economy suffers and even more people are let go and now don't have a job. They now have no job so they can't buy goods and the economy suffers even more.......and on, and on, and on..............

JDNewbie · Jun 8, 2011

India's population is roughly 1.2 BILLION people. China's population is roughly 1.3 BILLION people. If just 10% of those 2.5 BILLION people earn college degrees, we are looking at a work force of 250 MILLION college educated workers in India and China. The USA has roughly 300 MILLION total people. China and India are poised to have nearly as many college educated workers who will work for 1/3 (or less) of the wages of an American worker than we have total people all just one mouse click away via the internet and global communications. Anything that can be automated and hasn't already been automated will be, and it will moved to the workforce with the highest education and lowest cost. Anything that can be determined with a formula (banking, accounting, computer programming) will also be done elsewhere. America is going to have to "out-innovate" the rest of the world to stay competitive.

JerryS · Jun 8, 2011

Excellent question, Mike, and a lot of really good responses. I too have wondered for a long time if there really could ever be enough "jobs" or work to keep everybody busy---particularly in whatever place they preferred to live.

One of the problems in this country is that we no longer produce much of anything, except lots of good food. The rest of our stuff comes from far away.

Another thing that's different from 50, 60 or 70 years ago is that now the guy who wants to be an entrepreneur is immediately so strangled with regulations, restrictions, permits, licenses and all the headaches relative to hiring people, lots of people decide it just ain't worth it. It's not really your business---the government just lets you run so long as you forward the taxes.

Another thing that's different: when I was young people would hire kids, or men, to do work around their place, and pay 'em at the end of the day or week. Now if you do that, somebody from the government is going to want to know why you didn't send in FICA and withholdings. Or, if the guy you hire does something stupid and hurts himself, here comes Algonquin J. Calhoun, Esq., to see if he can get the deed to your place.

Fritz Maurer · Jun 9, 2011

What economic recovery?

Mike (WA) · Jun 9, 2011

Max unemployment compensation in Washington gets you $27,000 per year- That's about $13.50 an hour, which is higher than most entry level jobs around here.

Is it any wonder that nobody is looking very hard for a real job?

dhermesc · Jun 9, 2011

I would agree, but somehow even with massive automation the federal government just keeps growing every year.

Given that most of what they do (except the armed forces) is clerical work that has benefitted the most from computers you'd think there would be news stories about the massive decline of federal employees in the last decade - yet it never happened.

buickanddeere · Jun 9, 2011

Until the US Government quits spending more $$$ than the tax payer can pay. The economy and country will go bust.
Nobody has seemed to learn you can't fight a gorilla war with no clearly defined battle front.
The French got out of Vietnam for that reason, the US didn't learn.
The British and Russians got out of Afghanistan, the US didn't learn.
Then lets talking about tax dollars paying people to stay at home and do nothing productive.

jose bagge · Jun 9, 2011

"Those that know 'how' will always have an income...those that know 'why' will always be their boss". The Chinese and Indians will know how, perhaps...but the Chinese and Indian "why" will never be the same as the American "why". PErsonally, I think the Pakistanis and Indians are gonna blow each other up, so I look for all of that outsourced service to dry up! But- we're in a mess, and we're at a disadvantage- certainly as long as our government is subsidizing our competition ($20.7 billion to Pakistan since 9/11, all the while hiding Bin Laden.)

That being said, I haven't been physically inside a bank for probably 10 years- banks push electrons now, not paper- but I'd prefer not to deal with banks at all.

bc · Jun 10, 2011

Mike, the banks around here fix that problem by building new banks. Or else they remodel the existing location. Only the finest materials are used and it appears the architect is in a contest for the best/weirdest design award. The extra space goes to making the bank officers' offices larger.

Spook · Jun 10, 2011

(quoted from post at 06:00:30 06/09/11) Max unemployment compensation in Washington gets you $27,000 per year- That's about $13.50 an hour, which is higher than most entry level jobs around here.

Is it any wonder that nobody is looking very hard for a real job?

If you had a entry level job, you wouldn't get the max from UE. To get the max, you probably need 3 or 4 dependants. I wouldn't want to try to feed them on $13.50 per hour.

Spook · Jun 10, 2011

(quoted from post at 12:24:11 06/08/11) Was in a bank this morning that I don't usually frequent, and commented to the clerk (whom I know) about all the empty desks, and hoping the economy would turn upward and fill them up again. She said something I hadn't really thought about- Those desks will probably never be filled, and are empty because of electronics and automation, not the economy.

30 years ago, a substantial number of clerks were kept busy manually calculating and posting transactions on paper forms. Then they went to entering transactions at a computer terminal, now the software does the transactions without any human interaction. Takes a couple of "lobby people" now, one to interact with customers for check orders, etc., and one to take care of the stuff that doesn't get taken care of by the computer. But if the general transaction workload increases, they don't hire another person, they update the computer.

It's not just banks. When I started working in factories back in the 70's, there were operators all over the place. In 1980, I worked on a cylinder block line that took 105 hourly employees to run, plus several supervisors and 1 engineer. In 2007 I was working on a line with similar capacity, it only took 16 hourly employees to run. Now with 2 or 3 engineers / supervisors. We used to have hundreds of draftsmen & designers. Now everything is cad. And a lot fewer folks.

Most of the banks around here have about 1/2 to 2/3 of desks in the lobby empty. And they probably will stay that way.

What do we do when there just isn't enough work for everyone to do? I think we're in the middle of finding out.

OT- Jobs and the economic recovery

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