This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Presenting The American Sweatshop: An Infographic Of The Online Retail Warehouse Temp Job
One of the biggest surprise stories of the past several months, in addition to economic activity skewing record warm weather, and the New Normal seasonal adjustments (which as Albert Edwards noted earlier are giving data an upward bias for each of the past three years), is the consistently "better than expected" jobs numbers. There is one problem: as discussed previously, the rising jobs are purely a quantity over quality trade off, as every month more and more temp jobs take the place of permanent ones, especially those of former professionals from the FIRE sector. In fact, in January temp jobs soared by the most on record, and the total number of temp workers was just shy of all time highs. Ironically, as this happened, discretionary online retail companies have seen their stock price soar to record highs. One of the primary drivers for this has been the increased "efficiency" at these companies' hubs - their warehouses. Which just happen to be staffed with temp workers. The following infographic presents the reality behind these American "sweatshops" - because this is the "quality" of job that is rising rapidly in the current economy (at the expense of traditional permanent jobs) to give the impression of an economic recovery. There is no point in making an ethical judgment - work conditions are as they are. Just as workers at FoxConn likely have far better conditions than their peers, at least in their view, so do these temp workers view their life as better than the alternative, which is unemployment. It is, as they say, what it is.
Brought to you by: Business Insurance Guide
»
- 18863 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
"PR" ... So, your father was a paid-for, professional liar then?
I suppose its also their fault they have been left in a world of shit. No generation ever had it easier than the baby boomers. No competition from foreign markets on anything (besides Japan on a very small scale) and all the money in the world, which they subsequently trashed in a major way. Generation X/Y has to compete with China / all the illegal immigrants here to serve the baby boomers and the trashing of the USA's balance sheet, unfunded pension liabilities, not to mention complete greed Unlimited health care spending and an increasing police state, paxil the demon drug prescribed to all of them, two massive popped bubbles, and the rise of the 1 percent. Gordon Gecko said greed for a lack of a better word is good in a movie. It is LEGAL for our elected government officials to do what he did to get a prison sentence. Then they hold little mock press conferences asking why the bankers fucked everything up for theater or a little mock slap on the hand trial after everything has been trashed, with no repercussions (MF Global / Too Big to Fail anyone)? The differnce between Japan and USA? Remember the Toyota trial with the sticky peddel which the state trooper died from? They apologized, fixed every damn pedal changed the design and still got ripped by Obamas Transportation Director Czar guy or whatever they call themselves now. MF Global Lehman brothers, Goldman Sachs got up there and acted like King shit and said they did nothing wrong, fixed nothing and went right back to making faulty pedals and getting their gigantic bonuses. The share of the USA stock market compared to the rest of the world declined from 50 to 30 percent in the Bush Era. When I was working at a warehouse (with a college education) was during the stupid tech boom popped bubble, which none of my peers had jobs. They are only lazy because they have no options like the baby boomers had.
Don't give me this generation x/y are lazy crap. most of the people I know my age work ten times harder for ten times less than older folks, especially at warehouses in fact there are no older people even in warehouses none zero, except maybe a manager. Second the unemployment rate for 18-25 year olds is like 25 percent unheard of. You can't call someone lazy who has over 14000 different products to put on the shelf. How many products were on the shelf at Wal Mart in 1970? 100 of them? It is a marvel what these people do considering the whole working population would have to assemble crap to duplicate Chinas (yes only China, I'm not even throwing in the countless number of other countries with cheap labor and there are a ton of them) work, and they have to distribute them. Yes no other jobs besides making things consumers buy the entire working population. Baby boomers also simply do not have the computer skills or quick decision making skills to even compete (skills obtained from playing video games and using computers yes video games expand your brain sorry guys). I run circles around these people and spend some of my day helping them on the computer. They might have the "experience", but they cannot execute. Most people just take for granted what is on the shelves at the store they can pick from. They don't get there magically. Everything I hear from "The greatest generation" is the baby boomers were a bunch of babies.
"So fuck these lazy assholes of todays workforce. Letem go hungry"
You moron - they are fitter, stronger and more powerful than you - how long do you think (with your piss poor attitude) before they decide to take your house and everything in it - while you are powerless to stop them?
Typical Neo-con, blame everyone and everything except himself.
You are truly a (soon to be extinct) dinosaur
I wouldn't worry too much about this. Retail supporting jobs will go away with the collapse of the dollar. We will have to start producing again. Then you can make infographics about how horrible it is to work in factories all day instead of warehouses.
Produce what? All the capitol good have been dumped in China. You are fucking crazy.
These are not the jobs you're looking for.
Yes they should go invent another social networking site. Good plan.
Cry me a river. Nobody is forcing these people to work there, they can quit and leave any time they wish. These retailers are businesses, their goal is to make a profit. In the scenario of them being publicly traded, they have an obligation to shareholders to make profits. This isn't a charity or a yoga class. What a dumbass useless posting. Is ZH trying to win over the socialists/union idiots that frequent here?
What a dumbass useless posting. Is ZH trying to win over the socialists/union idiots that frequent here?
Aren't the socialist/union idiots/government/corporations one and the same these days?
This is my problem with trying to overlay libertarian ideology onto the status quo--it only seems to highlight it's ugliest facets. What you wrote is very ugly in my view.
Deflator - there are no unions for warehouse workers other than in the west. You are insane. Go find a psychiatrist and get prescribed some zyprexa.
narrow logic strikes again... why not suggest going back to slavery to beat China? Or you too liberal for that?
As globalization weeds out more and more of the people with disposable income who the fuck are you going to sell this crap to?
Go long Niemans and Dollar Stores since nothing in between need exist anymore
I think slavery is the only solution for capitalism to survivie now - clearly some people are keen to see this happen. The difference this time is it will be egalitarin slavery (colour won't matter - just class)
The problem is that people who say things like "nobody is forcing you to work for the money" are usually unproductive speculators who have never worked a day in their lives - this is where their failure is as the rest of us will simply go on strike - rather than see slavery return.
I'd like to see speculators 'earn' then! Hell I'd like to see any business survive after people like me quit and start fending for ourselves - we won't be buying ANY shit at ANY price as growing and stealing become the alternatives to working and consuming.
Yes they can quit, then you can sit there and wonder what happened to all the crap you purchase on a daily basis.
Agreed. How much should someone make to move boxes around? It's an unskilled job. I started out that way, and so did all my friends. We've all succeeded in life. We worked hard and proved ourselves to be worth more.
That's what young people need to do now. Be the best warehouse worker (or what ever you are doing). It's pretty easy with everyone else being so lazy and careless. You will stick out like a sore thumb and be rewarded with a better job and better pay. Keep doing that. I have a friend who is a vice president now, after starting in the warehouse.
A relevant information here once again: they make $60 per day, once taxes are deduced. Something like $1400 per month.
Concentration of wealth as the result of Smithian economics has made the environment so expensive that while earning six times more another person performing the same job in some other part of the world, they get just enough to keep their head over water.
Another point that must be taken into account: in a country like China,Saudi Arabia, this kind of jobs are worked for three or four years, people saving to build up a dowry, get a starting capital or something by people before their 30s. A vital component as it reduces the injury rate. The more you work this kind of working conditions, the more you have to invest on health, decreasing available revenue. Those are health consuming jobs (US citizen economics is all about consumption)
After that, in China or elsewhere, change in jobs, change in life. But here, these people will get more and more trapped in this kind of jobs, with little perspective to progress. Any kind of advance would mean an even bigger paycheck. They are going to work this kind of work for decades on a declining body.
Welcome to the result of concentration of wealth due to US citizen economics. It goes way beyond regulation, unions, government policies etc... which are US citizen smokes and mirrors for this topic.
I would personally not want to make my occupation Government in the current state. They have some very tough decisions to make, most of which do not have a solution with a positive result. Our money is going away to fund their overpaid pensions and salaries which we cannot afford, and they have promised things (penson liabilities in the 1 trillion range) and wrote checks their asses can't cash without non government workers bailing them out. They run around with the too big to fail mentality which they have been brought up to believe, during their years growing up as the sole superpower. Its just simply not the case anymore.
AnAnonymous - Wow an actual sensible comment on this topic! A rare find on this site lately.
In China and Saudi Arabia they don't have to compete with China and Mexico for wage rates, so they can use the job as a stepping stone. Most people here will be stuck in these jobs for the rest of their lives in the USA, unless they go to college and create a 60000 dollar debt for a college education which they will never pay off.
Or they can make a blog or some other non producing rip off advertised website or become a banker.
health risks: the same risks apply when sitting in front of PC all day and surfing web but somehow no one complaints then...
You only get arthiritus doing that because your right hand is moving in a repetitive up and down motion on your dick!
Motherjones! Bwuuhaahaaa!!!
That's the biggest sack of cry baby bullshit infographic I've ever seen.
Let me guess "in my day I worked 300 hours a week, I was getting up before I went to bed at night earning 2 dollars a day...."
The older generation are the problem - you are now believing your own bullshit.
Also, 2 dollars a day would buy you a house in a week - not so true now eh?