1970-telecommunications industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators and 9.8 billion long distance calls were made. there are now fewer than 78,000 telephone operators (an 80% job loss). should not congress or other protectionist phonies have helped these sad folks?

these 78,000 operators now handle slightly under 100 billion long distance calls, while the cost of long distance calls have dropped 60% just since industry divestiture in 1984. if we were forced to use 1970's technology (as the protectionists would have us do), it would take roughly 4.2 million operators, or 3% of the entire labor force. the same long distance calls would also cost 40 times what it would today.

this phenomenon is not unique to the telecommunications industry. this is how a healthy economy performs. it expands, contracts, downsizes, hires, fires, and innovates all to the eventual benefit of the consumer.

i read about the outcry of job loss on this board all the time. and yes, temporary job loss is an economic reality. however, neither job loss nor job gain is static. there is not a fixed amount of jobs in any given economy. this should be common sense--the population in the last few hundred years has boomed, while for all intents and purposes the unemployment rate has remained somewhere between 5-10%.

but then again, i've never accused those who wish to protect these jobs of having common sense.

Or how about those poor old stage coach drivers? Damn automobiles, damn them to hell.

yeah.

how about those big burly neanderthals that used to haul everyone's stuff about? what will they do now? i always knew that i hated the wheel. such a worthless invention.

seriously, it seems people always blame capitalism and the market for its downside but NEVER give credit to the market when either 1.) the price of a product falls or 2.) the quality of said product improves.

oh well.

Hey now, some people just aren't really comfortable with the concept of a dynamic economy.

Hey, how many millions of jobs have been lost to computers? CNC machining eliminated more jobs in America than outsourcing could ever dream of.

I'm sure the displaced telephone operators could find replacement careers in the adult 900 number industry. It's booming.

hmmm

Who are you attacking with this thread? I feel like I'm supposed to be offended.

This is, by leaps and bounds, the worst post ever.

Over your head Phanta?

OOGA BOOGA!! ME NO UNDERSTAND!!

I see where you are going with this, and I understand it as well.

It is definately a valid point.

So what will be the next big boom for employment in the U.S.?

What business or industry will be the next place people will go to in large masses?

They all became porters at big posh hotels, and give the guests a big whack on the head with their clubs if they're not given a ridiculously big tip.

It's already happening Tsunami. The big dark secret nobody wants you to know about is the amount of white collar technology based labor that we've insourced from Europe and other nations.

I don't see why everyone complains about outsourcing our factory jobs overseas. We can do better. Who do you know that wants to work in a steel mill, or a coal factory, or a textile mill, or shoe factory...nobody wants to do that shit...

What's unemployment in America at now? 5.3%? Employment is projected to continue a downward trend too.

So if one accepts that as truth, what then is the next step?

Again, where will the jobs be? What is the next industry? Where will they work?

This is not meant to devalue the argument, but rather to expand upon it.

i can personally think of a few 1000 that would want to work in a steel mill

The problem is that when factory jobs are moved overseas or downsized, entire towns are devastated. It is more newsworthy because it is not just the unemplyment rate that is effected, its the surrounding communities. If telephone operators all lived together in the same town, and then got laid off, that would be big news (as well as really creepy.)

Yes, but that argument only makes sense if one has human feelings, not if one sees people as unemployment figures and casualty statistics.

--PunkDavid

My new RoboSapien just shed a tear for computer programers everywhere.

Insourced? WTF are you talking about?


Companies utilizing outsourcing are by far the high tech industries, as they're doing everything they can think of to slim down their budgets, steel mills? coal factory? what century are you living in?
try jobs like help desks, call centers, data entry, tech support, order processing, you know, stuff us Americans excelled at until they moved operations to India.

Outsourced? WTF are people talking about? Insource = opposite of the ridiculous term outsource.



Look at the jobs they outsource. Dell still makes their computers here, but you'll never hear a customer service specialist that speaks English. European technology firms are also sending their jobs here. We clearly have the most stable growing economy in the world. That is why so many high tech jobs are insourced here.



So...let the Indian's do that too. Let's make microchips, nanochips, build computers, and actually make technology goods like we're doing. It's critical that America makes SOMETHING. That way we have something to bartar with with foreign countries. I'd rather have us making high tech stuff than being service oriented, or making shoes...

And as for coal mines...you haven't driven through PA lately have you?