Does worker productivity raise unemployment levels. I read in the ajc.com an coloumn by Cynthia Tucker that hard work makes more people unemployed. This seems wrong but how do you explain it. Thanks for your help.
clueless: Does worker productivity raise unemployment levels. I read in the ajc.com an coloumn by Cynthia Tucker that hard work makes more people unemployed. This seems wrong but how do you explain it. Thanks for your help.
1. So ideally nobody should do any work at all and we would all have jobs?
2. The "->" symbol in the following means "leads to".
Hard work -> more gets done -> wealth of nation is increased -> more to work with -> opportunities open up to produce more -> more workers needed to make the more -> more employment.
Lazy work -> less gets done -> wealth of nation decreased -> less to work with -> less opportunities to produce -> less workers needed -> more unemployment.
3. Could you provide a link toi the article?
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
Because this Cynthia Tucker cannot comprehend a world that is not static and a pie that is not fixed in size. In her "progressive" world, God has created society fully furnished by all sort of goodies. So if one works harder and earns more, then some other poor guy must earn less. As such, competition is evil and exploitative for the weak.
It really depends on the situation. In a sitch where funds are unlimited and payroll can be expanded with no limits, then yeah, slackers ought to dive in. That actually sounds like a socialist's dream welfare system. This also works if the one holding the pursestrings does not have efficient use of money as one of the goals of the purse. (works as long as the bursar doesn't get fired) Some government programs are like this, and in some countries, the government is the largest or nearly the only employer, and accountability varies from program to program.
The problem is, SOMEBODY has to produce. The buck gets passed until it lands on the poor guy who is doing all the producing to support the slackers. Suppose there is a govt program that expands to employ anyone who applies for a job. The monies come from taxes, so the suckers who are out there producing and paying taxes on their production are who makes the govt program "succeed" with its artificiality of less-production-means-more-jobs.
But wherever efficiency is part of the goal of the employer -- where the employer wants his MONEY to work for him through investment in equipment, supplies, and workers -- then the least efficient producers will get dismissed, like machinery that keeps breaking down, or a computer server that keeps getting overloaded ... or people that don't work as much as other people would in their place. Or else the employer gets dismissed by a market that dismisses inefficient producers, and then ALL of those employees are out of work.
None of this even touches the moral corruption that happens to a soul that doesn't align with life-supportive action. Muffling productivity and creativity muffles life.
DD5:Because this Cynthia Tucker cannot comprehend a world that is not static and a pie that is not fixed in size. In her "progressive" world, God has created society fully furnished by all sort of goodies. So if one works harder and earns more, then some other poor guy must earn less. As such, competition is evil and exploitative for the weak.
This. Writ another way, assuming that you or I doing the work of two people will disemploy one other worker necessarily implies that's there's nothing else he can or should do. Which makes zero sense because then technically why is anyone employed to any end other than hunting mammoth, gathering fruits and berries, and grinding rocks for weapons and cave paint? I mean after all, by this argument once those first stone age jobs were taken nothing else should have been possible and all other people would simply lie about eating and getting fat until the volume of people would necessitate adding more capacity to the existing jobs.
It's also wrong because even if you assume a fixed supply of 'wealth' to be had and productive jobs to undertake, assuming all people will want the same stuff at the same time intervals and in the same amounts from now into eternity is ridiculous. Because if the universe is bounded and finite, then technically there is a finite pie. However assuming we have tapped it all and that it's all usefully available in an economic sense, or that wants and desires of individuals will not change over time necessitating a reallocation of the existing fixed pie of resources, is ridiculous. So even in that ridiculous world technically there always is something to do. And in the real world, until the font of human want runs dry and we all fall down in a fit of material wealth induced extasy gasping, "Enough... enough...," there will never be a shortage of things to do.
There will also never be a shortage of bureaucrats and busy bodies assuming they shouldn't be done, or shouldn't be done except at a certain nominal price, or with certain licenses or state approvals, or only when done under certain pre defined and approved circumstances, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., which is the real reason people aren't re employed for long stretches when their past jobs are rendered unnecessary.
http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2010/03/31/stop-working-so-hard-youre-raising-the-unemployment-rate/ This is the link.. Thanks for your answers. I am just a truck driver but I have started to pay attention to economic theory. I realize I am out of my leaque here on this fourm so again thank you for your time and patience.
OK. So what is really happening?
Human beings are much different than, say, rocks and stones and gallons of milk. They have souls. They have feelings. They suffer hunger and thirst.
But the Law of Gravity doesn't care. If they are tossed out a window, they will fall, just like anything else.
There is another law of nature, just as cruel as the law of gravity, and just as inevitable. It is called the law of supply and demand. It applies to anything that is for sale. And human beings who get paid to work are [sad and cruel though it may be] just things being offered for sale. They are selling their labor.
By the law of supply and demand, when there are more workers than work at a given salary, the salary has to go down. Just like if a farmer has 10,000 gallons of milk, but only 9,000 people willing to buy it at $4 a gallon. The farmer will HAVE TO lower his price to get the milk sold. No way around it.
From the point of view of the Law of Supply and Demand, the workers are just like the gallons of milk. Exactly as they are like dead weight to the Law of Gravity.
We are in a recession now, meaning that there are not many jobs available [only 9,000 customers for the milk]. But there are plenty of people looking for jobs. [10,000 gallons of milk for sale]. Just like the milk, the price of people, their salary, HAS TO GO DOWN if they are to get jobs or keep their jobs. Apperently this is being done nowadays not by paying workers less, but by making them work longer hours for the same pay. Same thing really, if you think about it.
Cynthia Tucker admits in her article that this is essential for a fix to the mess we are in. [The reason for that is what we have been posting about earlier].
Her beef is that in the short run, these people are stopping someone else from working the extra hours. So they are depriving someone else of a job.
But they aren't. Look at the comments to that article. They all say the same thing. "If I work normal hours nowadays, I will get fired, and my boss will hire someone who WILL work those extra hours for the same pay." In other words, the Law of Supply and Demand has struck once again. The salary HAS TO go down, and it will one way or another.
Of course the govt might make laws and send cops and so on to make sure salaries stay high and hours stay the same. What will happen is that the Law of Supply and Demand will strike back. The company will have to close down. [But that is for another post]
Thanks smiling dave, I new there was an awswer. The light bulb just went off in my head. Her argument just seem wrong. I just did not know an answer. This answer will also help me with the guys at work that believe if we work less productive the company will be forced to hire more workers. I am printing it off and putting it in my answer journal. Hope you do not mine.
clueless:Hope you do not mine.
Im honored
clueless:the guys at work that believe if we work less productive the company will be forced to hire more workers.
Say the business makes $20,000 a month. The owner of the business wants to make as much money as he can. How does he make more money? By selling more stuff. So why isn't he hiring more workers right now to sell more stuff?
The most likely answer is that he can't afford to hire someone else. The new guy will not make him more money, but lose him money. Because the new guy will take home a salary, but not make the owner enough money to cover the salary.
If the guys start being less productive, the business will now make only $18,000 a month. That's the only difference. The new guy will still not be worth the money.
clueless: This answer will also help me with the guys at work that believe if we work less productive the company will be forced to hire more workers.
Really? Just tell them the new workers are going to be needed to replace the incompetents.
Not to mention how low of character it is to purposefully defraud your employer.
Peace
Smiling Dave:If the guys start being less productive, the business will now make only $18,000 a month. That's the only difference. The new guy will still not be worth the money.
And the $2,000 a month difference will be made up for by laying off more workers.
clueless:This answer will also help me with the guys at work that believe if we work less productive the company will be forced to hire more workers.
If the productivity of the firm decreases, it will be less profitable to employ each worker. Not only will the incentive to hire more people decrease, but the job security of each current worker is shaken. If your guys at work manage to succeed in lowering overall productivity just enough, you may have to say goodbye to a few of them also.
The argument is essentially that with an increase in technology and by implication productivity a firm can produce the same amount of output with less labour. Of course, this is merely another way of stating that with the same employment of labour an increase in productivity will lead to an increase in output levels.
Presumably the firm will still maximise profits by equating marginal cost with marginal revenue, and there's no reason to see why the demand curve (and hence MR curve) would shift in response to the change in technology, so the firm would simply maximise profits by expanding production until MR once again equals MC.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
No it is the opposite. High unemployment levels raise worker productivity because the marginally less productive workers are excluded from the labor market. See for example France which for many years had one of the highest worker productivity rates in the world, but also very high unemployment and an extremely regulated labor market.
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