[lbo-talk] Re: market forms of "self-esteem"

[joanna bujes]

Right. But neither retail nor finance jobs are particularly skilled, 
except that they involve a computer. Not to be a stick in the mud, but 
to the extent that retail is moving on-line, those jobs will go abroad; 
as for finance, they are moving those jobs abroad as fast as they 
possibly can.

Joanna

Doug Henwood wrote:


> frank scott wrote:
>
>> "...but the ATM makes the customer a part of the labor chain
>> even as she pays for the privilege..."
>>
>> i believe this began with self-service markets, doing away with clerks
>> and relying on customers to find items themselves... followed closely by
>> self-service gasoline stations, where you pump your own...this replaced
>> tons of workers, and the goods dealt with by "self" were not only the
>> same price, but usually more expensive in the bargain ...
>
>
> Not to be a boring old stick-in-the-mud, but these disappearing 
> workers have been far outweighed by freshly appearing ones:
>
> U.S. EMPLOYMENT
> (thousands)
>
>          total        retail      finance
> 1/70     71,175       7,425        3,485
> 6/04    131,301      15,061        8,038
> change       84%        103%         131%
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