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E-commerce Is Concentrating Jobs, Not Killing Them (axios.com)
A reader shares a report: The growing popularity of online shopping has hit traditional retailers hard, culminating in a spate of retail bankruptcies and store closures in recent years. But according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the retail apocalypse has actually created nearly as many jobs as it has killed. Though e-commerce and other non-store retailers have hired nearly as many workers as traditional retailers have cut, these new jobs are much more geographically concentrated.
See its not so bad if you look at the numbers in *just* *the* *right* way....
Nice if you already live in those areas. Not so good if you dont.
This sounds an awful lot like "corporate speak." It sounds like an HR buzzword. "Oh, we're just concentrating jobs ...." I hate articles like this that insult my intelligence and assume that I have no critical thinking skills. Well, maybe they hope that I do not have critical thinking skills. With eCommerce, there are fewer people needed as it is all about automation. In a brick and mortar store, you have salespeople. In an eCommerce setup, the salesperson is totally bypassed as you do your own shopping and check out when you want. Some stores do offer a pop-up chat where you can ask questions but this person is likely a shared commodity among several eCommerce stores. This is why sometimes the person at the other end of the chat takes some times to answer you. I don't believe this study has any merit whatsoever. What happens to all of the peripheral jobs that brick and mortar stores create? There are people that needed to maintain the spaces and service them when needed. If the store is in a mall, then the stores support the various services like security, cleaning staff, and maintenance technicians.
The jobs are geographically concentrated in the middle of nowhere, where few people actually live, because real estate is cheap. This leads to more commuting, where retail jobs are located near where people hang their hats.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, they're concentrating them in the Amazon warehouses, and then they're going to replace them with robots due to economy of scale.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
If you don't happen to live next to Amazon's new distribution center and work in retail? Too bad for you.
Eventually we are going to really miss that corner store and rue the day we decided that next day deliver works just fine.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The folks who lost the jobs where they aren't now concentrated.
They still have the problem of finding new work in a poorer economic setting because profits from these work concentration sites are not flowing to small towns.
And geographic options are decreasing for people who remain employable.
I want the progress. I also want to see us take care of each other while we make progress. Greater acceptance of telecommuting will help. Maybe we still need better tools for getting connected (the Jedi hologram room would be nice) and defining and measuring effort of people engaged in thinking jobs, so that managers don't have to see you in a short wall cube to justify your paycheck.
Meaning the tail of the income distribution becomes thinner and thinner. That's assuming what the article claims is true.
What's the problem with the income tail becoming too thin? The premise is that this is one nation and everyone is expected if the need arises to spill their blood for the country equally. Somehow when too many are struggling too much a different sentiment arises.
That said I believe the nation will self correct, and that we are on the path to doing so.
Technology doesn't kill jobs, it creates them. ALWAYS. But the new jobs require more skill, so there is a lag while people retrain.
200 years ago there was no such thing as a regularly paid professional sports. The closest we came was the roman gladiators that received endorsement contracts and occasionally a retired gladiator (usually a slave that had won his freedom) was paid large sums of money to return to the ring.
Now we pay our athletes huge sums of money. Not counting the agents and all the other related new jobs.
From the day we became farmers instead of merely hunter gathers, Jobs come from the desire for things, not the needs of society.
And human desire is boundless, not limited by a set amount of food, clothing, etc. Give us all a sex robot and we will demand two - for a threesome of course.
Rest assured, trust in human GREED it will never run out, there will always be jobs.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Do the new jobs pay as much as the old jobs?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This would explain Amazon's proposal to build a second "headquarters" that's been having every low-cost municipality begging for the chance to host it lately. Maybe they want to continue poaching AWS talent from Microsoft in Seattle and Google in SV, and send all the "B players" in the retail division to some cheap locale. The problem with e-commerce vs. traditional retail is that all your employment funnels up into warehouses and back-office campuses, and the jobs in every smallish area of the country dry up. And over time, those back-office campus jobs will get eliminated as well, so I'm guessing this consolidation is temporary. An example I personally know of is the company that manages my retirement account. Headquarters is in Boston, and I'm sure that's where they have all the super-smart traders, fund managers and executives. But my statements and customer service calls from from some back office in Dallas.
The problem I see in general with the labor market is that the entry level positions are being eliminated, and there's a big gap between zero experience and expert in terms of requirements for jobs. Retail used to fill that gap at the low end, and entry-level corporate work used to fill the need to soak up all the generic college students with a generic BS in management. I remember 20 years ago seeing people who partied their way to a degree doing as little work as possible just show up to group interviews senior year and get picked for some random corporate function. The world will be a very different place if the only entry level position is at Amazon's fulfillment center packing boxes 12 hours a day...in previous times these students I'm referring to would be able to become senior paper pushers, then managers and directors and have a good life. When you kill that career ladder for anyone except those who can write web front ends in Node.js, you're setting society up for a huge disruption.
Am I advocating make-work? Yes, I think I am because the alternative of massive unemployment is not something we're set up to deal with. If you live in one of the middle-tier cities (think places like Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, SLC, etc.) you most likely have some huge company's back-office functions located there. Drive by their campuses sometime - they probably occupy one or more huge office buildings and employ thousands of people. Each one of those thousands of people is supporting a household, buying things, paying taxes and having kids. What will we do when every one of their jobs is eliminated either due to automation or offshoring?
If you look at the first graph from 2012 to 2017 e-tail went from ~30 to ~45 billion USD while employment went from ~440k to ~570k. That's 50% growth with 30% more employees. And that's in a booming business sector where lots of new systems are being designed and rolled into production, what happens when you go more steady state? It would be interesting to ask Amazon how many they'd really need for a skeleton staff that did nothing but fill deliveries of existing products using current systems. And where it's going in 10-20 years, I mean you don't expect radical changes at the tipping point because if you waited that long you're way too late to the party. You begin at the tipping point or even before the tipping point because you'll have the biggest snowball when it starts tumbling downhill.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I have clients scattered across the US, some live in metro areas some in rural areas.
;) Change is a constant ;)
Their servers are located god knows where in some data center. Only 3 live in the same state I do.
I do a majority of my work remotely, from my home office or my office/work shop that is 2 miles from my home.
It is true, Amazon is having a large effect on things. And they are really hurting most small e-commerce sites, since Amazon skims 8%-15% off the top of every invoice total, which really hurts the smaller operators since Amazon takes a large chunk of what little margin there is on most items plus in order to get real visibility on Amazon you must use fulfilled by Amazon and they also charge an inventory management fee if you do that.
But if Amazon gets the sales volume up enough an Amazon store can work. But their user interface for managing your store truly sucks. And their master inventory system is a complete mess. And it is a constant battle with them as they re categorize your products from 8% commission groups to 15% commission groups and you spend a week or 2 arguing with them to get them changed back to the proper group. Then next month they will move some other inventory items to the 15% group. It is a mess, but a mess that is forced on more and more small e-commerce sites.
BTW That is why Amazon supports Internet Sales Taxes, They want to force small e-commerce sites to switch to Amazon Stores so they get first shot at skimming profit off the top of all sales.
Now getting back to how this relates to the article. These e-commerce sites need technical individuals to help them wade through the technical complexities if they really want to be successful. So there is a niche for tech outside of the high cost of living hubs. But it takes a different approach and a lot of work.
Now in the end Amazon "WILL/HAS" win/won. And individuals like me will need to find other niches that allow us to live where we want. But that is just the way of things
If mail order isn't getting things done with less labor, then you wouldn't expect the prices to be any better. And if the prices aren't better, then the reason consumers are choosing it must be convenience or some other quality.
Hmm. Yeah, actually, I can believe that. Fits my experience, anyway. Score 1 anecdote point.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
In the end, employees lose anyway because more people in a certain area means more of the salary must go into the home, which is probably less desirable. Furthermore longer commutes means less personal time and time for family.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I have no idea what the fuck you've been smoking but holy shit that's strong!
There are so many things awfully wrong in your entry that I don't even know where to start.
Our ongoing technological ascension continues to create a world where higher cognitive abilities are required in order to thrive
No, it doesn't. It's not even valid for the whole USA, let alone the entire world. Out of the whole world population, maybe 10% live in a technologically-advanced society, the rest are decades behind (centuries in some cases). Owning a smartphone doesn't count, but even if you'd go as far as that, the number of smartphone users worldwide is estimated to be at around 2.3 billion, that's 30% of the world's population.
This is very good for our species. Since we don't have any predators to apply selective pressure, we need something else instead.
As in wars? Because when people are hungry enough or poor enough (and in enough quantities), they start being restless, then they riot, then there's revolutions, civil wars, and then those expand into wars between countries and soon enough your high horse will be knocked off from under you by a bunch of foreigners fleeing from poverty-stricken (and/or war-stricken) countries, some of them blowing themselves off just for kicks (not their personal kicks though).
I am sure the unskilled workers that lost their jobs are not happy about this. But, the recipient of the short end of the natural-selection stick is never happy about it.
Have you even the slightest clue what "natural selection" even means? Sorry it was a rhetorical question, of course you don't.
Adapt or die.
Yeah, only in contemporary society "adapt" could mean "get a bunch of guns and kill the bloody bastards who made me lose my job or business". The less violent alternative would be for those people to live off benefits, and the society finds itself carrying a burden of tens of thousands of unhappy people who are fed, clothed and sheltered off YOUR taxes, without producing shit. That's why these types of situations should worry us, it's because they slow down society as a whole.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
No, Amazon isn’t killing retail. Retail is slitting its own throat and has been for over a decade now. They pay their workers minimum wage for the most part and wonder why they don’t get quality people (in other words they’re getting what they’re paying for). They over work their good employees to the point of burnout or they cut hours on employees forcing them to get jobs elsewhere to make ends meet. And they wonder why they can’t get or keep anyone.
Look at their “marketing” too. It’s all about sale after sale after sale and coupon upon coupon upon coupon. On top of that is the attempt to chain you in with a high interest store charge card too (because they get a kickback from the bank). Nothing of course about how their stores are well stocked and constantly replenished. Nothing about the friendly, ever-present sales staff available to help you, etc.
But Amazon has just become a scapegoat for retail’s own failures. Sure Amazon has more inventory and a bigger network of shipping/warehousing than most stores, but that advantage is negated by the fact that in a more urgent cases Amazon simply cannot deliver. Fixing dinner and the appliance you need dies? Can’t run out to Amazon.Com and buy a new one but I can at a retail store. My Bluetooth headphones died the other day and I needed a pair for today so I went to Best Buy and got a pair because Amazon wouldn’t have been able to get a pair delivered to me before tomorrow.
You know what drives me to Amazon? When I walk into a store and they don’t have what I need. Oh sure they’ll order it for me but it’ll take a week to get there versus the two days Amazon can get it to me (and this was before Prime). A while back the video card on my computer died so I went to Best Buy’s site and all current generation GeForce cards were online only even though it was 6+ months after release. My local store did not have them nor any store within a 50 mile radius.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
And the other problem people forgot with the last recession... Many people were underwater in regards to there homes so they would have to take a significant loss to move.
It's a valid meaning. Concentration, as in ~ camp.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It also means the death of small retail business - the way that most people rise up in society, from being a worker/slave to having their own business and accumulating some wealth.
You're clearly a communist Hillarytard. GP is clearly right.
Look at Trump. Look what a smart decision he made when he chose his parents.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Working in an Amazon distro center is much worse than Manning a cash register...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
As we all know it's basically impossible for people to move to where there are jobs available
"Impossible" is hyperbole, but retraining and moving for a job is a substantial sudden expense, especially for someone with a social skills disability. Is it better to move before finding the job or vice versa?
Besides, the Constitution probably forbids [moving for a job] anyways.
Correct. It grants the Congress power to set criteria for allowing immigrants to work in the United States. This affects someone who resides out of the United States but whose job was "concentrated" to the United States.
The summary didn't seem to mention anything about wages vs. cost of living in the jobs replaced vs. the jobs created.
And that's assuming I believe their study.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Keep smoking that weird shit, mate.
The stupid will always win, simply because there's a lot more of them. You just live in a bubble which distorts reality.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I wonder if the conclusions are the same for US and wordwide
Many big e-commerce businesses are US based and they sell goods offshore. Did we replaced non-US brick-and-mortar retail jobs by US e-commerce jobs?