Where have all the workers gone?
It’s the question of our time, as last week the state Department of Workforce Development reported record low unemployment of just two-point-eight percent—yet everywhere you go there are “now hiring” signs.
If you ask a crusty old economist, they would tell you that those of us in Generation X failed to reproduce at a sufficient rate to produce enough progeny to replace our parents—the Baby Boomers—as they have left the workforce. If you ask a Democratic lawmaker, they would tell you no one should have to work unless they have free health care, free day care, paid sick leave, and they are paid a “living wage”—even if they are a 16-year old still living with their parents flipping burgers 15 hours a week. Ask a Republican lawmaker and they would tell you there are plenty of available workers sitting on the couch at their parents’ house living off their stimulus payments and extended unemployment benefits.
But what no one seems to consider is that a growing number of people are just working on your phone.
I don’t mean the folks at places like I-Fix where they bring your phone back to life after you drop it in the toilet. And I’m not referring to people manning customer non-service call centers. Recent interactions with large corporations have informed me that those are still jobs Americans don’t want to do.
I am talking about the people who fill up your social media time lines with this country’s largest product: “content”. “Content Creator” is one of the fastest-growing jobs in the U-S. Every corporation, professional sports team or league, celebrity, and even municipal government departments have added social media teams in recent years. But they are dwarfed by the number of shall we say “independent content creators”—people who feel the need to post pictures and videos of every little thing they do—or those who think of themselves as daredevils doing the latest challenge or stunt—and those who have become self-described “experts” in such fields as putting on makeup or fixing your computer.
There are thousands of job titles that didn’t exist even ten years ago. “Social Media Influencer”—which is the most-popular future career choice for kids in high school today. “Travel Blogger”, the aforementioned “Makeup Tutor”, “Instagram Model”, “Golf Trick Shot Artist”, “Professional Gamer”, “Citizen Journalist” and “Act Surprised When You Watch an Online Video Guy”. All “jobs” that exist only on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube and Twitch.
I follow a guy on Facebook by the name of Noel Phillips. He’s a big, bald, British guy that videotapes himself flying on commercial airlines all around the world. He doesn’t fly to places for any other reason except to provide a first-person view of what it’s like at the airport and on the plane. He’s been on some of the most rudimentary aircraft flying to remote areas of central Africa—and he’s flown the outrageous first class on Emirates Airline’s Airbus A-380 where you get your own suite and a shower ON THE PLANE!! But because I follow that account, Facebook wants to let me know about the 50 other guys who are now doing the same thing as Noel. So there are at least 51 people in the world whose “career” is to get on airplanes with their Go Pro cameras rolling.
If you recall the Kyle Rittenhouse trial two of the key witnesses for the prosecution (who actually benefitted the defense with their testimony) had non-job-jobs. A self-described “citizen journalist” provided the eyewitness account of Rittenhouse shooting his first victim after he tried to grab the teen’s gun. A self-described “social media influencer” provided the cellphone video of Rittenhouse getting beaten with a skateboard and killing that guy before grappling with his third shooting victim. I’m in the news media and I follow a lot of journalists—I had never heard of these two witnesses—and yet, they are making “a living” on social media.
And let’s not forget about America’s true crime sweethearts from last summer: Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito. Instead of serving coffee at Starbucks or cutting grass in local parks for the summer, these two were traveling the country recording themselves waking up, drinking coffee and visiting the national parks of the west. It’s called “Van Life” and that is yet another on-line “career” for thousands of young people who have thousands of followers hanging on every new “adventure video” that gets posted.
On his classic comedy album “Class Clown” George Carlin has a bit called “Occupation Foole”—where he talks about the roots of standup comedy being the original court jesters who entertained bored kings and queens. The bit includes the classic line “That’s the nature of the job ‘DIG ME!!!’’ and that is what an entire generation has embraced: “I am going to entertain America because everyone should be interested in what I am doing, wearing, drinking and saying!”
But as another comedian Bill Maher brought up on his HBO show a few months ago, how do you build an economy on just trying to entertain each other? Unfortunately, no one has figured out a way to go viral with videos of people unloading cargo ships, or making microchips, or driving semis, or cleaning up our public spaces.
But if you want to find where everyone is “working” while not enough people are “actually working” go to your timeline and click on those suggested videos. Just make sure you stay until the first embedded ad plays—you’d hate to keep that “hard working” booty shaker from not getting paid a few cents by the advertiser.
