It’s hard for the currently employed to imagine life without a job. If you’re older, it’s hard to understand why a young person, especially a young man can’t just go out and get a job like the baby boomers did in the sixties, seventies or eighties. When you’re young, and by young I mean anything under 45, it’s hard for you to understand what’s coming your way once you age just a few more years. It all comes raveling apart the moment you’re called into the office – if you even get that level of formality.
Marginal employment complicates the equation. Marginal means that your position is a low cost commodity to the one paying the wage. As the pool of workers seeking or making well under living wage grows, the incentive to keep or even decrease the wage level is strengthened. Conventional wisdom, particularly from employed baby-boomers, GenX’s and Republicans of all ages is that these jobs are only temporary, for young people, or for people with no incentive to improve their life. Take the job they say because you can someday mobilize yourself out of it by your strong-can-do American will and determination, but in doing so, you have just reinforced the hand of employers who will then test the waters out at a dollar less for the next guy/gal. Don’t take the job, someone else eventually does, you lose and so does the educational process of employers watching supply and demand. No matter what choice you make, there is ridicule from one side or the another.
It’s basic economics, the free-market system plus technology. Low wage jobs are here to stay for now because there are more potential workers than jobs. This is getting worse as automation technology kicks in and we start seeing automated cashiers at fast food, driverless cars on the road and fully automated warehouses. This is not just an entry-level problem. Programs can analyze the stock market better than a human analyst. Automation is also hitting tech and middle management as well. We don’t have to wait for the Jetson’s ere to see a significant impact. Once another 5-15% of the economy is affected, the dominoes start to fall and we’re watching that early phase now. Business could have a big heart and stop this, yes? Theoretically yes, practically, no, and it does not matter whether business is big or small, all are trained to act in maximum self-interest until the gig is up. The one’s that do prioritize an employee base are punished for it in the competitive market place. There are isolated success stories, but they’re rare.
Age is a huge factor. You stay on a job, you have experience, you have value and the employer’s status quo inertia dictates that you’ll be paid for it and paid a little more each year, ad infinitum. Your district manager lauded you at last years Christmas party and gave you an award. You’re liked by your peers and loved by your clients, until one day it all stops. One day, you are master of the universe, a minor rock star, looking up trip destinations for your retirement that is now less than ten years away. An email drops in your box: Meeting, Conference Room 3 at 10:00AM, your manager’s manager. You arrive, the room is empty but Mr. Smith comes in moments later. No coffee in hand as usual, just a legal pad and a sealed envelope. He sits down and takes a deep breath and looks down at the envelope. At that moment you feel your chest tighten. Your life is about to change.
