Blame it largely on the pandemic, which weakened the hold the workplace held on people’s psyches
By outward appearances, the labor market today looks much as it did before the pandemic. The unemployment rate is just as low, the share of adults in the labor force is just as high, and wages are growing at roughly the same pace after inflation.
But beneath the surface, the nature of labor has changed profoundly. Career and work aren’t nearly as central to the lives of Americans. They want more time for their families and themselves, and more flexibility about when, where and how they work.
The impact of this change can already be seen in both individual companies and the broader economy. It has led to a persistent shortage of workers, especially in jobs that seem less desirable because, for example, they require in-person work or fixed hours. That, in turn, has altered the bargaining position of employers and employees—forcing employers to adapt, not just by paying more but giving priority to quality of life in job offers.
To be sure, some of these changes arise from an exceptionally tight labor market. If unemployment rises, some of employees’ newfound leverage may evaporate.
This is why I don’t trust people who claim the jobs AI takes will be replaced, because that’s how it was in the past. It wasn’t, we never replaced those jobs, only created meaningless work. David Graeber is right.
It’s not that AI is good enough to take our jobs. It’s that AI is good enough to fool hiring managers into thinking it can take our jobs.
We didn’t replace jobs with productivity gains. We absorbed them into our jobs. Consider expense reports. Used to be that you would send all your receipts to an administrative assistant and they would send you a report to approve. Now that work gets pushed down to an individual responsibility. Company thinks if we let each worker do a little more, we can get rid of this position.
It’s just incredibly apparent now that not all of us need to work anymore, by a longshot, but how can they keep the working class in its place without scarcity?