> In other words, the author claims that when we speak of “bullshit jobs,” we’re really just talking about the postindustrial equivalent of factory-line workers, those with the unenviable fate of having to carry out the repetitive, mind-numbingly boring but still very necessary tasks required to manage increasingly complicated processes of production. As robots replace the factory workers, these are increasingly the only jobs left. (This position is sometimes combined with a rather condescending argument about self-importance: if so many people feel their jobs are useless, it’s really because today’s educated workforce is full of philosophy or Renaissance literature majors who believe they are cut out for better things. They consider being a mere cog in administrative machinery beneath their dignity.)
> Final Working Definition: a bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.
[1]: https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2013/08/21/on-bullsh...
The article is talking about tasks that actually are necessary, because they are still being done. But instead of being done well, by a person specialized in that task, they're being done less well by people who are specialized in entirely different tasks, taking away the time they can spend on the tasks that they themselves are specialized in.