Why Bullshit Jobs Are (Finally) Dying [video]

Watched about a minute of it - starts with an anecdote about a guy with a no-show job, then moves to big tech layoffs and "these companies ran exactly the same" afterwards, implying that everyone who was laid off was 100% dead weight. Turned it off immediately.

At first I thought we’d talk about the mechanisms that go into not noticing employees literally not showing up to jobs for years and maybe a larger trend of what allows for that. Tech layoffs are less interesting and feels a bit premature to dub those jobs as useless and not acknowledge these businesses transitioning to very capx heavy businesses.

I've always had a problem with Graeber's definition of exactly what a "bullshit" job is. Every time one is identified, the "well, akshually..." comes out, and often for defendable reasons.

Take "social media coordinator" - we had some young person at our Fortune 500 company have this position, which led to some eye rolls. But is it really "bullshit" if she keeps an exec from posting something embarrassing, which could damage the stock price? I guarantee you that companies have reasonable justifications for every position.

AI is more a tool that allows a productivity boost per employee, like all other automation tools (e.g. SolidWorks almost completely automated mechanical drawings, so drafting is not a thing any more - something I was told in high school, BTW, that would always be in demand...)

I always wonder if anyone else considers BS jobs societies implict UBI? And that losing them is actually not a good thing. Its not like stock ownership is equitable or anything.

The TLDR is not that interesting, but here you go...

1) BS jobs, in the sense outlined by Graeber (the BS jobs essay guy), proliferated due to easy money/low interest rates

2) money is not so easy anymore

3) AI is taking our jobs

4) BS jobs may actually not be going away, just shifting, e.g. from "culture coordinator" to "AI ethics reviewer"

Counter-argument: bullshit jobs are beneficial to the wider economy.

Society demands consumption, which is funded via wages. The higher consumption, the more the economy grows. Ergo, having more people employed with higher wages creates more economic activity, which in turn fuels more growth, which fuels more jobs, etc. While eliminating bullshit jobs sounds great on its own merits, eliminating the wages for said jobs can actually clog the local engine by lowering wages, raising unemployment, slowing hiring, and curtailing growth. If 15% of jobs are “bullshit” to be eliminated, that’s a 15% reduction in SaaS and seat-based revenues, which means those companies providing services have to cut their headcount, which startles others…you get the idea.

I suggest that instead of cutting “bullshit jobs”, we instead reduce working hours across the board (and penalize overtime) such that more folks have an opportunity to engage in meaningful and valuable labor in exchange for higher wages. Rather than burning out a smaller portion of folks with longer hours, we share the load across multiple folks over a shorter time frame. The extra downtime creates more opportunity for economic activity, which in turn will grow the economy.

Unfortunately the video game industry is still filled with bullshit jobs with people who do nothing important.

https://youtu.be/s5qKN2Yxaok

This was a good video from Laura Fryer talking about this. She compared how there were barely any “producers” on the Halo game from 25 years ago. And then you look at the recent remake of the same game and there are so many people working in it. Again this remake of the same game from 25 years ago. So much bloat. So many managerial and producer positions? Why? It’s the same game!

Actually it’s not even the same game. It’s less than the same game! The original Halo 1 had single player and multiplayer. The remake only has single player. So you have tons of more managers to do less than the stuff just in some better graphics…

The point Graeber makes is that bullshit jobs are a thin excuse to continue to give people money where otherwise there may not actually be productive labor to be done. Nothing works if people don't have money, things get pretty fucked up if those at the top have it all, so we sort of slid into this situation of people having pointless jobs just to receive some distribution. This keeps things roughly the same and no one really questions what's going on a lot.

This guy seems to hear "bullshit jobs" and simply think "people who I don't think are useful". Graeber's is a critique of the economic order, this guy seems to be beholden to it.

"Bullshit Jobs Are (Finally) Dying"

Huh? Government is the definition of BS job. We accuse each other while they continue to get paid from us.

Disappointing.