No jobs? Why so many channels?

[Michael Hardner]

All companies are doing this. Going 3rd party for their IT support and processes.

You're about 15 years behind on the trend, here. As Forbes pointed out, offshoring is 'dead', which means it's not increasing anymore, which is good news for you.

Also, if you meet your budget for the year, you get it cut down next year. Because you can always cut more.

That's what happens when you're a cost centre, ie. you don't generate revenue.

[GostHacked]

You're about 15 years behind on the trend, here. As Forbes pointed out, offshoring is 'dead', which means it's not increasing anymore, which is good news for you.

Not really, I am now applying to one of these third party type entities. I doubt I will see the wage I was making. I see your point on the off shoring stopping or slowing down, but the damage is already done.

And this company may be late to the game with off shoring/outsourcing, but it also shows that it is still happening. This is no small company either. Companies cannot afford to constantly keep up on the tech that is coming out. But that is what is happening here. Updates upgrades to stay relevant and in many cases the old stuff still works as good. This company was playing catch up over the past decade.

The music shop I visit is using the same software for 15+ years. It works and does everything they need it to do.

That's what happens when you're a cost centre, ie. you don't generate revenue.

Every aspect of the business is treated as a cost center. Severe budget cuts in all parts of the business, not just IT.

[Michael Hardner]

The music shop I visit is using the same software for 15+ years. It works and does everything they need it to do.

Software becomes obsolete after 15 years. I know of a music shop that uses this approach too. Kind of a 'quit while you're ahead' strategy. Probably a better idea to spend some money and make a few mistakes than to get behind, IMO.

[August1991]

We in the first world have been freed from manual labor and are now free to produce YouTube videos and cable TV shows? Is that what I'm reading?

-k

You're reading right.

How much money are you making from your YouTube channel, August?

-k

Kimmy, I happen to have a Youtube channel - but I never expected to have income from it.

-----

How to explain:

1. If someone finds a better way to do something, other people can do other stuff with their time.

2. I am surrounded by traditional/stupid people who don't understand this obvious point 1.

Edited December 18, 2013 by August1991

[eyeball]

2. I am surrounded by traditional/stupid people who don't understand this obvious point 1.

Maybe you're just projecting.

[GostHacked]

Software becomes obsolete after 15 years. I know of a music shop that uses this approach too. Kind of a 'quit while you're ahead' strategy. Probably a better idea to spend some money and make a few mistakes than to get behind, IMO.

The system works, and takes care of all their needs, why change? Upgrade for the sake of upgrading to stay relevant when it is not required to make the business succesful?

On the other hand the company I used to work for had revamped the whole company top to bottom in a span of 10 years. Depends on the market you want to play on. The tools/software is expensive as support can get expensive as well. So if you don't need to upgrade, don't. But I will use your notion that companies want to save money where they can. That is one way to reduce cost by not having to upgrade all the time.

I've seen production software put into place that was supposed to be the best and work out of the box (tell that to any tech and they will laugh you out of the room but VPs are not techs which is the first problem). The support team has been modifying the software ever since it was put in place 6-7 years ago. One update fixes something while breaks something else and we have to wait a month or two before that fix is in, then something else goes wrong.

[Michael Hardner]

The system works, and takes care of all their needs, why change?

There are lots of business reasons to do this - to reduce costs, to remain competitive or to gain a competitive advantage. Change isn't necessary but 15 years in this technical environment is likely something that needs a second look.

Upgrade for the sake of upgrading to stay relevant when it is not required to make the business succesful?

I agree that it's a bad idea to do that.

I've seen production software put into place that was supposed to be the best and work out of the box (tell that to any tech and they will laugh you out of the room but VPs are not techs which is the first problem).

With all due respect, most tech managers are morons - and that's another major reason for offshoring.

[Michael Hardner]

1. If someone finds a better way to do something, other people can do other stuff with their time.

2. I am surrounded by traditional/stupid people who don't understand this obvious point 1.

I think that people haven't wrapped their mind around economic change such as you describe. But, to be fair, the spectre of losing employment still holds the same negative connotations that it did in the era of the one-company career, largely because government hasn't done enough to distribute the benefits of trade.

And, yes, this is definitely governments responsibility - as much as it is to ensure that we are competitive.

[GostHacked]

There are lots of business reasons to do this - to reduce costs, to remain competitive or to gain a competitive advantage. Change isn't necessary but 15 years in this technical environment is likely something that needs a second look.

Why does it need a second look? Their system does ordering, customer information, connects all their stores and their inventories. You don't need to spend money to change for the sake of change. For their size and store numbers, that system they have works perfectly and has saved them lots of money over the years by not needing to upgrade software or hardware.

With all due respect, most tech managers are morons - and that's another major reason for offshoring.

I agree, they are morons. I would say in most cases it's office politics and egos that prevent a good system from getting implemented.

[Michael Hardner]

Why does it need a second look?

I already gave you the *general* reasons. As to specifics, I can't say unless I did a business case. Are they on the web ? Does their inventory system connect to the web so that you can pick-up in store ? How's their social media marketing ?

To add:

I agree, they are morons.

Then they will likely fail. The environment is too competitive for managers who discover offshoring 15 years after the fact.

[GostHacked]

I already gave you the *general* reasons. As to specifics, I can't say unless I did a business case. Are they on the web ? Does their inventory system connect to the web so that you can pick-up in store ? How's their social media marketing ?

They actually call when an item is ready for pickup. Yes they are on the web, and you can pick up in store, OR have it delivered. And I don't know much about their social media. Being one of the best music shops around kind of speaks for itself. For the most part I stay away from a lot of other social media. The ones I care to participate in are very limited. While I appreciate the ability to check an item online and videos about the product, it's much better to get your hands on it and experience it for yourself. Not all businesses get the benefits from a cyber presence.

But if you are a good salesman you can sell a freezer to an eskimo.

Then they will likely fail. The environment is too competitive for managers who discover offshoring 15 years after the fact.

Time will tell.

[Michael Hardner]

They actually call when an item is ready for pickup. Yes they are on the web, and you can pick up in store, OR have it delivered.

If you can order it on the web, that's amazing that the 15 year old software anticipated e-commerce...

For the most part I stay away from a lot of other social media.

This is where the money is going. If you're in IT, train yourself on Bootstrap frameworks or somesuch...

[kimmy]

You're reading right.

Kimmy, I happen to have a Youtube channel - but I never expected to have income from it.

And you framed this thread in terms of the question "No jobs?" as if the internet and the plethora of digital channels were the answer to that question.

For most people, "income" is an extremely important consideration when they look for a "job".

How to explain:

1. If someone finds a better way to do something, other people can do other stuff with their time.

2. I am surrounded by traditional/stupid people who don't understand this obvious point 1.

1. If someone finds a better way to do something, the people who used to do that thing to earn an income are going to have to find some other way to earn an income.

2. See 1.

The people flipping your hamburgers or changing your tires aren't there because they're short of things to do. They're there as a means of obtaining income. If somebody invented a way of flipping burgers that made the human employee obsolete, that human isn't thinking "yay! Now I don't have to flip burgers anymore! I'm free to spend more time making YouTube videos." That human is thinking "I have to find some other way of earning money", and making YouTube videos is not a viable answer to that question.

-k

[kimmy]

It’s sounds as if you think I (and people my age) didn’t contribute for decades to CPP………Funny enough, “when I was your age” we also joked that if one was to rely on CPP to retire they’d best enjoy Fancy Feast…..

You guys had the good fortune to pay unrealistically low CPP contributions for much or most of your working lives.

Boomer life expectancy is far beyond what was projected when your contributions were defined. Sure, you paid in, based on some formula built on the idea that you'd retire at 65 and expire at 72 like your parents tended to. They realized this sometime in the late 1990s and hiked premiums drastically sometime around 2000 to cover for the shortfall in existing CPP funding. So while you've been paying higher premiums the past 13 years to help you catch up; I've been overpaying for my whole working career also to help you catch up. Many of you guys will get to collect CPP at 65; for me it's 67 currently (and no doubt going to keep going up.)

Just this week there's been another flurry of articles about the need for higher CPP premiums, again.

-k

[Guest Derek L]

You guys had the good fortune to pay unrealistically low CPP contributions for much or most of your working lives.

Boomer life expectancy is far beyond what was projected when your contributions were defined. Sure, you paid in, based on some formula built on the idea that you'd retire at 65 and expire at 72 like your parents tended to. They realized this sometime in the late 1990s and hiked premiums drastically sometime around 2000 to cover for the shortfall in existing CPP funding. So while you've been paying higher premiums the past 13 years to help you catch up; I've been overpaying for my whole working career also to help you catch up. Many of you guys will get to collect CPP at 65; for me it's 67 currently (and no doubt going to keep going up.)

Just this week there's been another flurry of articles about the need for higher CPP premiums, again.

-k

Yes, I understand that......but I fail to understand your point? My Children will be paying for your retirement.....and any eventual grandchildren for yours and their parents etc....

And of course, the CPP contributions are based on a % (max 9% contribution?) of earned income, capped at ~50k a year…….So I’ve been contributing the maximum amount towards CPP since you were a little Kimlet pooping everywhere…..and in turn, your contributions will go towards my CPP monthly payments when I’m in diapers pooping everywhere…….That’s kinda how these socialist ponzi schemes work……..but of course, once the glut of Baby Boomers die off, the commitments based on the birthrates of your generation should either flat line or be reduced……….

Regardless, your generation will feel the full benefits (if you’ll actually research and use them) of tax free savings accounts and the eventual income splitting……..both vehicles not available to us old farts, but have the potential of a greater benefit to your age group then the monthly cat food payments you’ll ever get from CPP.

[August1991]

If somebody invented a way of flipping burgers that made the human employee obsolete, that human isn't thinking "yay! Now I don't have to flip burgers anymore! I'm free to spend more time making YouTube videos."

"Kimmy", you get my point. Edited December 20, 2013 by August1991

[kimmy]

The idea that people "liberated" from low-skill jobs are now free to create wealth is a bunch of nonsense. They were always free to not work in low-skill jobs and go create wealth.

They weren't working at these jobs because they were captives. They were working at these jobs because it was the best option they had for obtaining income. With the demise of their low-skill jobs, they will move on to their next-best option for obtaining income.

Perhaps some imagine each laid off bank teller or burger-flipper to be a potential Mark Zuckerberg. But that's not a realistic idea.

-k

[kimmy]

Yes, I understand that......but I fail to understand your point? My Children will be paying for your retirement.....and any eventual grandchildren for yours and their parents etc....

And of course, the CPP contributions are based on a % (max 9% contribution?) of earned income, capped at ~50k a year…….So I’ve been contributing the maximum amount towards CPP since you were a little Kimlet pooping everywhere…..and in turn, your contributions will go towards my CPP monthly payments when I’m in diapers pooping everywhere…….That’s kinda how these socialist ponzi schemes work……..but of course, once the glut of Baby Boomers die off, the commitments based on the birthrates of your generation should either flat line or be reduced……….

Regardless, your generation will feel the full benefits (if you’ll actually research and use them) of tax free savings accounts and the eventual income splitting……..both vehicles not available to us old farts, but have the potential of a greater benefit to your age group then the monthly cat food payments you’ll ever get from CPP.

Well, there's currently a political movement afoot to dramatically increase CPP payouts and CPP contributions, possibly doubling both. It's been in the news this week.

If this results in you boomers in the late years of your working lives getting doubled payouts in exchange for just a few years of higher contributions, I'm going to completely snap. I don't even know what I'll do. Probably quit my job so that I can become a care aid and go Nurse Ratched on out-to-pasture boomers.

-k

[Guest Derek L]

Well, there's currently a political movement afoot to dramatically increase CPP payouts and CPP contributions, possibly doubling both. It's been in the news this week.

I’ve heard………here’s an idea, what if we borrow from Obamacare and require all Canadians to invest in a bottomed out RRSP from once they enter the work force?

If this results in you boomers in the late years of your working lives getting doubled payouts in exchange for just a few years of higher contributions, I'm going to completely snap. I don't even know what I'll do. Probably quit my job so that I can become a care aid and go Nurse Ratched on out-to-pasture boomers.

-k

Though I can understand your sentiments, in your view, what would be a “fair” age cut-off ? For arguments sake, let’s say only those under 38 would see the double payout……is that fair for those that are 39? Or what of the 37 year old lawyer earning six figures versus the 52 year old granny working at Walmart?

Tough questions to be answered for sure………

Joking aside, in a few years, feeding us old farts apple sauce and rolling us over to the window (but not in direct sunlight!) may become a financially rewarding career…………..Or we’ll just push for further foreign workers, there has to be a whole bunch of eager Filipino nurses out there dreaming of changing our diapers and giving us sponge baths…..or better yet, those robots off Elysuim (Just watched it with the wife)

Edited December 21, 2013 by Derek L

[August1991]

The idea that people "liberated" from low-skill jobs are now free to create wealth is a bunch of nonsense.

"Kimmy", now you don't get my point.

I suggest that you [sarcasm]stop using a dishwasher/vacuum and go back to handwashing your husband's clothes[/sarcasm].

Technology liberated women in the 20th century. Technology lowered women's value at home and made their market value comparatively higher. Many women rationally chose to join the paid labour force.

Edited December 21, 2013 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

McLuhan, 1957:

"As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of "do it yourself"."

Nobody understood that until recently, and it speaks to your point, Auguste. People thought "how could automation make me have to do things myself ?". The concept of 'free time' to people used to manual labour meant that they would imagine just more sitting around in lawn chairs and sipping martinis.

There is no free time anymore. If you are finished work, you sit down somewhere and start clicking.

[eyeball]

Automation is going to pose the biggest threat to people who cannot let go of the need to impose a moral imperative on drones to produce. The moral panic the age of joblessness will cause will be mother of all 'oh the humanity' events our species has ever faced.

[kimmy]

"Kimmy", now you don't get my point.

I suggest that you [sarcasm]stop using a dishwasher/vacuum and go back to handwashing your husband's clothes[/sarcasm].

Technology liberated women in the 20th century. Technology lowered women's value at home and made their market value comparatively higher. Many women rationally chose to join the paid labour force.

You're right, I don't get it. Help me figure out what you're talking about. You're putting dots and leaving me to connect them, and I'm obviously not connecting the dots the way you think they are supposed to be connected. This is turning into a game of Pictionary. State your opinion, and we'll discuss it.

Initially you had framed this discussion in terms of employment, as if the plethora of digital content creates a vast opportunity for employment. But it doesn't. Lots of people are creating digital content; very few people are making any money at it. And money is a vital component of any useful definition of employment. If you're "employed" at something that doesn't provide you an income, you don't have employment, you have a hobby.

This latest quip about vacuum cleaners and washing machines.. Ok, so the amount of time required by women to do unpaid labor in the home was reduced, so women used their newfound free time to earn income doing paid labor. I am with you so far.

So now that paid positions are vanishing in some industries, many people once again have free time and no paid position. How will they use their free time? As far as I can tell, your answer is creating digital content... which is a fun hobby I suppose, but one which provides no income. Finding ways to use free time is easy. Finding ways to use free time to generate an income is difficult. I know lots of people trying to do so, with varying (but mostly disappointing) degrees of success.

But perhaps I am still not getting what you are saying. Maybe you have something else in mind. If you do, don't leave me to keep guessing. Just come out and state your position and we'll talk about it. Quit circling the runway and land the freakin' plane, dude.

-k

[Argus]

The whole generation boomers vs millenials thing is BS. There's not really such a thing as a generation. People are born continuously, not in discrete clumps. There's just as much difference between 2 people born 5 years apart whether they both fit into the same "generation" or into different ones. There is nothing magical about the arbitrary cutoff dates people have used to define "generations".

There is economically, if one generation comes into their adulthood during the boom years, and another comes into their adulthood during very lean times. The last ten years have been fairly lean times. The bulk of boomers came into adulthood in the sixties, which were far better. Myself, it was the eighties. Not so good for me.

Anyway, economic success is as much available for the taking now as it ever has been,

I don't agree. A lot of jobs which once paid enough for a single wage earner to support a family, buy a house, and set money aside for retirement, now barely make enough to support one individual in a small, rented apartment - if they still exist. All across the board, the salaries and benefits of blue collar, and even white collar jobs have come under pressure. The automakers don't pay the salaries they used to, and don't give the benefits they used to. I worked briefly for a company which had persuaded insurance companies to outsource their data entry operations. The difference? The insurance companies had paid fifty percent higher wages plus benefits. This sweatshop outfit I worked for paid no benefits and jammed people in like firewood. I don't know if anyone's done a comparison of what folks who worked as store clerks in the sixties made compared to what they make now, but I'm betting it's not a pretty picture either.

Then there all those jobs which were moved offshore, like all the thousands and thousands of customer service and operator jobs which are now in India and Bangladesh, all those assembly jobs for toasters and TVs, and all the simple jobs which have been replaced by automated systems and robots. The need for low level, semi-skilled labour hasn't been lower and more poorly paid in a long time. Companies can shop the world now for cheap software designers and factories to put their products together, so why pay people here?

That's not to say there aren't areas in which blue collar workers make good money, but those areas have shrunk dramatically compared to the sixties and seventies. Which means you need university, but the expense of that has soared even as the wages paid for the kinds of jobs people used to take to pay their tuition has shrunk.

Paying into ponzi schemes that we'll never see a dime back from like CPP or Social Security is certainly a burden, true,

They're not ponzi schemes. And people seem to forget the boomer bulge is already retiring. A child born in 1945 is 68 years old now. Once they start dying off in droves pension plans and health care systems will find themselves in much better shape.

Other "generations" have borne the burden of wars that claimed millions of lives, plagues, depressions. Today, our burden is government programs that we will never benefit from.

Utter drivel. You benefit from social programs, whether you get money from the or not. You know that kid named Larry that kicked you into a coma last week to steal your wallet -- oh, that's right, Larry didn't do that because he wasn't starving to death and freezing in the cold because he had welfare. How about that. And that virus you picked up at work that cost you a lung - didn't happen because of public health care taking care of people. And that guy who ran you down while driving drunk, well, he didn't do that because he was in treatment. Social programs benefit society, and you, despite how much you hate the very idea, are a part of society.

I think the real struggle of our time, of the coming two decades or so, will be the struggle to prevent Western democracies from degenerating into police states.

I think the struggle of our time will be keeping the wealthy from taking complete control of government and changing all the laws and rules to turn our societies into oligopolistic dictatorships with only a veneer of democracy where we get to vote for the representative from the district of Dow Chemical or the member of parliament for Irving Oil East.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Argus

[GostHacked]

I think the struggle of our time will be keeping the wealthy from taking complete control of government and changing all the laws and rules to turn our societies into oligopolistic dictatorships with only a veneer of democracy where we get to vote for the representative from the district of Dow Chemical or the member of parliament for Irving Oil East.

Of our time, of our parents time, of our grandparents time, ..... it already happened. The game is already lost.