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New blog! .... How Many "Ands" In Your Life?

Jobs Not Coming Back?

� Michael Wynne, 2010


Have you ever ordered a pizza delivered to your home?  Did you offer to employ the person who delivered the pizza?  Of course not.  All you wanted was your pizza.  You got the results that you wanted without creating a job.

Nowadays, companies can do the same!  They can get results without creating jobs which may be one answer to the question of why hasn't the stimulus brought more jobs back?

  • The fact is many of those jobs are gone forever. The economic and business models that created them in the first place are no longer there, and new ways of accomplishing results without creating jobs are on the increase.
  • This is part of an ongoing economic evolutionary process. At the beginning of the 20th century, almost half of the U.S. population lived on farms producing food for themselves and the rest of the nation. By the end of the century, thanks to technology which allowed farms to produce much more with much less, and to urban growth, less than 3 percent of the population grew more than enough food to supply not only the entire U.S. population (now three times greater than it was in 1900) but also to sell billions of dollars of food to the rest of the world.
  • In manufacturing, over the last 50 years we have been seeing something similar due to automation, robotics, computerization, artificial intelligence, lean manufacturing, outsourcing, and improved logistics and techniques; we now produce far more with much less.  Further, the purpose of a company is not to operate plants and fill them with employees, but to create value and customer delight while generating a worthwhile return on shareholder investment.  Increasingly, many companies are doing exactly that without necessarily manufacturing the products and services that they sell.
  • Back in the early nineties we began to see the same thing happening in the service and administration areas, as a result of computerization, outsourcing, automation, and the fast growing application of artificial intelligence. It was evident then that the vanishing jobs were no longer necessary and would not be coming back. As happened during the agricultural and manufacturing evolutions, the people who lost those jobs would have to either find different types of jobs, or create other ways of making a living.

The population of the United States is, and will continue to be, growing, but the creation of jobs may not keep up with that pace. Old companies will be disappearing and new ones will appear, but that does not mean an equal number of jobs will be around.

Obviously, current generations will eventually retire (if that is still an option in the future), and many but not all of those jobs will be filled by newer generations.

Stimulus, making money more accessible to businesses, may help some companies to survive, and others to even grow, but it is not the business of companies to create jobs; if anything, it might even be desirable for them to operate without employees. Plants are becoming so mechanized that there is talk about them even operating "in the dark", that is, because without employees you don't need light.

So, how are future generations going to make a living? The current extension of unemployment benefits cannot go on forever ~ or can it? Is it the government's job to feed the people? No, but if it doesn't, will the people allow it to remain in power?

  • At the time of the Roman Empire, over a period of 700 years since its founding, the city of Rome grew from a small village to a population of over a million. Farm lands shifted from small family operations to become huge landowner estates.  After losing their farms, many people moved to the city of Rome, thus its tremendous population growth.  But, unlike the United States, there were no new machines to work the land; as a result, food production declined to the point where the government had to import food, mostly from Egypt, to feed the population.  Of course, politicians took advantage of this economic disadvantage to increase their power and wealth.
  • Will we follow this path? I don't think so, but we do need to tackle the job elimination trend, and create alternative ways of earning a living. There are parts of the United States where there are not many jobs simply because there are no factories or large corporate headquarters in the area. How do such people make a living?  Some of them own farms; others provide essential services such as police, fire protection, healthcare, sanitation, and so on. Others, open stores that supply the multiple needs of local residents and, where seasonal tourism is part of the economy, provide related services. Many earn their living by holding seasonal part time jobs, and offering special services during the off season such as things as simple as supplying firewood.

Will this be our future? Maybe not, but it could provide a part of it. The growth of online businesses and services will probably continue almost endlessly in the years ahead.

What is clear is that just supplying credit and money to industry will not bring back all the jobs that are destined to disappear due to obsolescence and technological advances. The one thing we must do is to prepare today's emerging generations to meet the challenges of dramatic change that lie ahead.

More than ever before, adaptability to change will be essential; so will the ability to find creative solutions, which has made it possible for us to survive millions of years of threats, disasters, and challenging unexpecteds.  Frankly, everyone who has a job should give some thought to what they would do if their job went away ... because it could.

One thing is certain; increasing the productivity and profitability of businesses will protect many jobs and even create some.  But productivity and profitability can only be increased through innovation plus enlightened leadership of well trained and motivated employees.  Let's face it: companies don't generate profits, people do!  Help save jobs and increase your company's productivity and profitability by developing the skills and knowledge of your leadership teams and employees, and by freeing up their marvelous but untapped creativity.  Some of Michael Wynne's training programs that will help you achieve these goals are:

  • The Power of Profitable Innovation
  • Create Tomorrow's Profits Today
  • Can Your Business Pass the Profitability Test?
  • The Art of Creative Problem Solving
  • Profit and Growth Strategies for Your Business

All of these programs are highly interactive, and will be customized to the specific needs of your business.

 

For more information, please contact Michael Wynne at
(630) 420 2605 or [email protected]

www.imcaonline.com   www.FreeProfitTips.com
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Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of being.
  Goethe

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He who fixes his course to a star changes not.
 Leonardo Da Vinci

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The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
  Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

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Never guess.  It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.  Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. 
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle



Michael Wynne
International Mgm't Consulting Associates