‘Their jobs are disappearing’
For the last week or so, following a terrible carnivourous assual on the front of my brain, I have been left with a harsh, debilitating central headache.
I hope to do a post soon on current wage and price stagflation, when I am back in, 'the swing of things'. One reason why prices are not rising is because the brick-and-mortar retail sector is facing competition from online sellers, who have less overhead. There has been a slow, ongoing retail apocalypse for the past ten years. I do have an LJ friend who has seen this happen at Penny's - or Target? - up close. But it never occurred to me that the success of online sales has the quiet but ominous effect of, among other things, destroying jobs for women.
Retail is a major sector for female jobs - and so when retail falls, so do a lot of women. To my knowledge, this phenomenon, which certainly affects today's politics, has never yet been identified, except for this article which I read today, and which sparked my awareness - of a far wider, global problem:
‘Their jobs are disappearing’: how the demise of the high street is killing women’s jobs - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jul/24/their-jobs-are-disappearing-how-the-demise-of-the-high-street-is-killing-womens-jobs
Yes, there are some jobs in tech/internet/online-sales occupied by females: Jobs like data-entry, grunt picker jobs for Amazon, and some computer/programme engineering jobs. However, my sense is that there is not a big enough per-portion to compensate the loss of female jobs in b-&-m retail.
Add to the flaws of internet & online-selling, (such as income division, globalisation, invasion of privacy, computer parts pollution, elitism, AI/robot dangers, cheap goods, loss of local taxes, loss of local stores, and the rise of China), the probability of disruption of women's economic and social progress. Actually, SOME women's... Because there will always be happy women in the upper 1%, believe me.
Anyway, when you look at the homelessness, human feces, housing prices, etc., in San Francisco, in a state which has ironically become a #1 home for poor people, at the same time the big tech companies are rolling in the million$, you might agree that a similar devastation of particular groups, like women and minorities, would also be occurring. It doesn't matter how shiny the promise of new wealth appears, this is always the way of catch-fire capitalism.
And I don't blame capitalism 100% - because capitalism is partly an extension of some natural laws, such as competition for survival, or the culling of the herd. Indeed, rather than raising all boats, capitalism always sacrifices some and throws them off the train. That, "some," can be a collection of minorities so large that it is in fact the majority. The 99%
This post is not about arguing the benefits of high-tech, online-selling, etc., of which there are of course more than a few.
Researchers and advocates need to get on this important, nascent issue right away. Dear sleazy politicians: There are votes to be made here... $$$ Ya ha...
I hope to do a post soon on current wage and price stagflation, when I am back in, 'the swing of things'. One reason why prices are not rising is because the brick-and-mortar retail sector is facing competition from online sellers, who have less overhead. There has been a slow, ongoing retail apocalypse for the past ten years. I do have an LJ friend who has seen this happen at Penny's - or Target? - up close. But it never occurred to me that the success of online sales has the quiet but ominous effect of, among other things, destroying jobs for women.
Retail is a major sector for female jobs - and so when retail falls, so do a lot of women. To my knowledge, this phenomenon, which certainly affects today's politics, has never yet been identified, except for this article which I read today, and which sparked my awareness - of a far wider, global problem:
‘Their jobs are disappearing’: how the demise of the high street is killing women’s jobs - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jul/24/their-jobs-are-disappearing-how-the-demise-of-the-high-street-is-killing-womens-jobs
Yes, there are some jobs in tech/internet/online-sales occupied by females: Jobs like data-entry, grunt picker jobs for Amazon, and some computer/programme engineering jobs. However, my sense is that there is not a big enough per-portion to compensate the loss of female jobs in b-&-m retail.
Add to the flaws of internet & online-selling, (such as income division, globalisation, invasion of privacy, computer parts pollution, elitism, AI/robot dangers, cheap goods, loss of local taxes, loss of local stores, and the rise of China), the probability of disruption of women's economic and social progress. Actually, SOME women's... Because there will always be happy women in the upper 1%, believe me.
Anyway, when you look at the homelessness, human feces, housing prices, etc., in San Francisco, in a state which has ironically become a #1 home for poor people, at the same time the big tech companies are rolling in the million$, you might agree that a similar devastation of particular groups, like women and minorities, would also be occurring. It doesn't matter how shiny the promise of new wealth appears, this is always the way of catch-fire capitalism.
And I don't blame capitalism 100% - because capitalism is partly an extension of some natural laws, such as competition for survival, or the culling of the herd. Indeed, rather than raising all boats, capitalism always sacrifices some and throws them off the train. That, "some," can be a collection of minorities so large that it is in fact the majority. The 99%
This post is not about arguing the benefits of high-tech, online-selling, etc., of which there are of course more than a few.
Researchers and advocates need to get on this important, nascent issue right away. Dear sleazy politicians: There are votes to be made here... $$$ Ya ha...