Comment by skarayan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skarayan | Hacker News Reader

While the overall unemployment number is a good indicator for the economy, it is far from the best indicator. Instead of looking at an overall "jobs count", perhaps we should be looking at how the state of technology (or the job market) is improving the overall efficiency in the economy. After all, our lives improve as technology becomes more efficient.

For example, while Amazon may step on the shoes of the likes of Borders, look at what it is doing for consumers. On a global scale, we should be focusing on improving the lives of people, but at the same time we should continue to promote competition.

The unfortunate consequence of competition is that some people lose out. To rectify this, perhaps we should focus on creating the right types of jobs and promoting constant education. In addition to the unemployment number, I wish we could see some additional metrics.

At a previous job, I was responsible for data management and business intelligence. My team basically looked at the company's numbers and sliced and diced it every way possible. I would love to see some more metrics from the government. I would also love to see some better tools developed by the government to help us visualize the data. (One tool that comes to mind for this sort of stuff is an OLAP cube)

Without going too far away from the point, a simple "unemployment number" isn't enough. Let's look at some more data and see where the problems are. Also, let's make this transparent so that people start talking about the details instead of one number.

I agree that overall efficiency is important, but in terms of a reasonably coherent society, the unemployment number also seems pretty important. In the long-term, either almost everyone needs some sort of job, most of the time, or we need a plan B to accomodate a large portion of the population being long-term unemployed.

If, say, we have long-term 20% unemployment, even if the economy was otherwise booming, this 20% of the population with no real source of income poses a big problem. Either we have to figure how they can participate in the economy somehow (which would mean the unemployment rate would go down, solving the problem), or, if long-term there is going to be a persistent higher unemployment rate, then we have to do something different about it (perhaps a guaranteed-minimum subsistence income along the lines that Friedman and Hayek advocated).

You're right, but we need more transparency. What are the skills of the 9% or so of people that are unemployed now? Do the majority of the unemployed people work at similar types of jobs? What was the reason they lost their jobs?

These are all important questions for reducing that one overall number, but everyone seems to be just focusing on the total number.

>For example, while Amazon may step on the shoes of the likes of Borders, look at what it is doing for consumers. On a global scale, we should be focusing on improving the lives of people, but at the same time we should continue to promote competition.

The same people who love Amazon are the same people who hate walmart and complain walmart is putting local businesses out of business. When in fact, Amazon pretty much grew their business by hiring walmart executives. And also while you look at what amazon is doing for consumers, also look at what it is doing for the enviroment.

Amazon has done two environmentally positive things that I can think of off the top of my head.

1. Pushing for frustration-free packaging. Less waste if the packaging isn't designed to attract eyeballs and deter shoplifters in a retail environment.

2. When scheduling grocery deliveries with Amazon Fresh, you can see when they will already have a truck in your neighborhood. My groceries essentially carpool on their way to my house.

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