Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone
The problem of these discriminatory HR practices are only going to go away if the unemployment rate goes down. So long as every position advertised gets 100s of applications HR is going to continue to find "easy" ways to filter the numbers down to something more manageable. That's why the requirements for jobs have gotten so high in recent years, because they know they can. It's a buyer's market. It's impossible for us who are not optimal to get any kind of position. Once the pool of people who are "optimal" get depleted, only then will we see things change.
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The problem is, that the resources become too expensive in the process... so this depletion will not really happen.
The problem is like this, with each technological advantage that helps us to produce more efficiently (robots, automation), we can create more product per person (employee). To produce something you need resources, raw materials.
If people become too efficient because of technology, the only limiting factor in production will be the (costs for the) resources and the demand for the final product in the market.
When the resources and the demand become the limiting factor, you don't need that many employees. You only need so many that you can satisfy those two factors.
When you use highly efficient technology to produce stuff, you also need a certain amount of highly trained employees who keep the technology running (and improve it).
But even if everyone was a highly trained professional, the global economy could not utilize all this (wo)man power. This is because you can only improve/refine the raw materials into hi-tech until you reached the limit of what is technically possible. Unfortunately, the efficiency in production grows faster than the broadening of the technological limits of the products.
It comes basically down to this:
Someone has resources and wants to exchange these resources directly or indirectly for higher value goods made from these or other resources. Essentially the labor in the refinement process (production) is payed for with resources (or other labor -> service oriented).
The problem is, that most resources are hard limited (there is only a defined amount of it on earth), at the same time the efficiency in productivity is only technically limited. The technical limit can be changed however. At a certain point you could produce more than the market demands. When that point is reached you can do two things a) improve the product or b) make it cheaper.
If improving the product becomes so expensive (research & development cost) that the benefit of the improvement is outweight by the costs, you are left with the coice to make the product cheaper.
To make a product cheaper means to eliminate as much as possible of the production (labor) costs... ideally to a point where it is marginally above the price for the resources.
At some point the labor becomes a negligible part in the process and the resources become the all important factor.
The question that remains then... how can such a system work? There is a market with possible consumers but most of them are not employed (their labor is not worth a thing anymore). Or rather, their labor's net-worth is far lower than the actual costs of the resources.
Honestly, endlessly growing economies, who could really buy into that scam/theory? There is a limit or rather an equilibrium. When this is reached many people will stay on a certain level (or others who where above that level will be equalized with those who were previously below that level).