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Comment by natrik | Hacker News Reader

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

18,000 unnecessary staff amassed over the years.

Edit: *Not all of them were unnecessary of course.

I've read the book and it's pretty good, it also shows how bad the economy is. Especially where there are a lot of "manager" jobs that seem to be quite superfluous.

The fact that Deutsche Bank is cutting 18K jobs is quite bitter, because the mass of people is quite large. I wonder if other banks are planning such layoffs and if we will have to expect more mass cutts.

Depends how you look at it, how many truly _necessary_ jobs can you create ? Certainly not enough to employ every healthy person from 20 to 65. These people still need to pay their bills, eat food, sleep under a roof.

We won't get out of this as long as we see unemployed people as the plague, in the meantime we'll see a surge in bs services (uber, deliveroo, hellofresh, &c.)

>>We won't get out of this as long as we see unemployed people as the plague

What are you talking about? "Management" sees unemployed people, especially those with actual skills, as a great asset. They provide a downward force on wages. It's only other laborers who see them as competition and a problem.

> "Management" sees unemployed people as a great asset.

> laborers who see them as competition

More like people getting their tax money through unemployment benefits.

No one thinks "God damn I love all these low skilled workers, they're such a good thing for our economy". Juts look at the US, lowest unemployment rate in decades because somehow it's the only metric that counts now, even if that means that the lower 5% has to work 2 full time jobs to make it work.

> the lower 5% has to work 2 full time jobs to make it work.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul...

useful article but doesn't really contradict that claim, just that AOC uber exaggerated. the percentages reported align with the claim and it's reasonable to assume they are the bottom 5% as opposed to somewhere in the top or middle.

>>No one thinks "God damn I love all these low skilled workers, they're such a good thing for our economy"

Yes. Yes they literally do. They also figuratively do when they say things like "You're replaceable so get back to work".

Unemployed people are, in current society, often dependent on the state to survive, which means taxation to support them, which many people don't like and often implement policies to deny them that support.

So what you're telling me is that laborer's see the unemployed as both competition for their jobs(if low-wage, unskilled laborers) or siphoning money from them (if high-wage, skilled laborers) and that politicians then play that disdain into successful creation of policy targeting these unemployed people which directly benefits management by creating a constant underclass which they can tap into at any time for low cost due to the desperation of these people?

I'm shocked.

> So what you're telling me is that laborer's see the unemployed as both competition for their jobs

Afaik you're the only one defending this position.

In this thread or in the world? If thread, yes. If world...have you heard of Karl Marx?

I think its wrong to think of jobs as either "necessary" or "unnecessary". It's more useful to consider them either "useful" or "useless".

The former criteria would mean eliminating most of the entertainment industry, because although it is useful, it isn't really necessary for life or an economy is it? But yet that's a terrible idea because entertainment is useful and people want it.

How is Uber a “bs service?” If I need to get somewhere and I don’t have my car, Uber is minutes away. It’s great. Try calling an actual taxi in a town like Houston — their response times in the days before Uber could be between 30 minutes and never.

Depends on how you define your needs. Surely anything besides food, water and shelter could be tagged as superfluous. How far do we make it go ?

Do we _need_ to be able to get toilet paper delivered in 2 hours by amazon ? Do we _need_ food delivery services ? Do we _need_ spotify ? Do we _need_ netflix ?

You must think people had a miserable life not even 50 years ago, imagine, no cell phone, no taxi unless they're at voice reach, no on demand food, what a shock.

Banking as a sector does this as a rule so that staffing doesn't interrupt business.

Hire 3 people for any one role because clients are paying the fees and that way you can tolerate a vacation or a firing.

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