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Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by Animats on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:00PM (#21095736)
I'd been expecting "peak office". "Peak factory worker" was in the 1970s in the US. I'd expected that, with everything being computerized, total office employment would decline as well. Didn't happen.

Why is an interesting question.

Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by sct202 on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:22PM (#21095915)
I suspect some of is due to how amorphous the term white collar is. The BLS has job projections, https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupations-largest-job-decli... , and they forecast large declines in admins and clerk-type office jobs that you would expect.

The fastest growing list on the other hand, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest-growing.htm , has some office jobs, but it's dominated by healthcare jobs that some of which are kind of office-like.

There's also some weirdness, with Computer Programmer listed on the decline list, while Software developers, applications is on the fastest growing list.

Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by duderific on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:35PM (#21096024)
That's probably just a reflection of the job title changing, rather than the number of jobs available. Computer Programmer is an "old-school" title while Software Developer is more up to date.
Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by swagtricker on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:04PM (#21096672)
If you look at the description, I believe part of the problem is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has always been under the delusion that "Computer Programmers" were little more than typists who understood programming syntax. There's an assumption that some sort of all important _DESIGN_ work was done by analysts or other so-called experts perhaps the almighty "Software Developer". Could it be Computer Programmers just type what they're told, and perhaps Software Developers do the important work;)

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by swagtricker on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:11PM (#21096713)
Note to my own comment: Take a look at the "What they do tab" for both titles. You'll think that you've been transported back to 1969 in the punch card room where yes - the lowly Computer Programmers simply write code while the Software Developers talk to the business people and figure out what needs to be done. While hardly writing any code themselves. It's hilarious.
Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by opportune on Friday September 27, 2019 @08:05PM (#21097382)
Yeah I’m just gonna need you to figure out how to get our sales guy between all these sales hubs for the lowest cost... if you could get that done by next week that’d be great.

I’ve heard this distinction arose partly because most/many early programmers were women, a relic from the days of the human computer

Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by adventured on Friday September 27, 2019 @07:49PM (#21097291)
> Why is an interesting question.

I'd speculate that office workers are often interacting with things that can't easily be outsourced or don't make sense to outsource fully. Billing, HR, support, legal, accounting, marketing, advertising, PR, and dozens of other things.

The wealthiest (and many of the largest by employee count as well) US corporations today are largely software companies. Facebook is software, its ad network is software. Google's search engine is software, its ad network is software. Most of the value in AWS is in the software services. Software has comically fat margins typically. It affords staff bloat that most any other type of business does not. It's also incredibly hard to undercut via simple industrial methods like dumping (as in the steel or aluminum industries).

If you look at the ways you can beat a US manufacturer on making a pair of shoes for Nike or steel or an electric fan or office chair or toaster, those methods will not work well against Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Salesforce, Oracle, AWS, Adobe, Workday, Intuit, ServiceNow, et al. I'm not putting my data in China's cloud with their version of AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean or Linode even if it costs 1/4 as much. I'm not using their Cloudflare. I'm not running my CRM software in their cloud. And so on.

Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by Animats on Sunday September 29, 2019 @04:11AM (#21105821)
The wealthiest (and many of the largest by employee count as well) US corporations today are largely software companies.

Wealthy, yes; high employee count, no. Facebook has about 35,000 employees. Alphabet/Google, 103,549. Amazon is huge, at 650,000, but they have a warehouse and trucking operation. That's not software.

WalMart has about 2.2 million employees. Ford, about 200,000. Boeing, 153,000. The biggest "tech" company is IBM, with 366,000 employees.

(What does Alphabet/Google need 103,000 people for? They don't build much hardware themselves. They don't do customer support. They backed off on doing network outside plant, as Google Fiber. What part of the operation is labor-intensive? Ad sales?)

Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by wongarsu on Friday September 27, 2019 @05:25PM (#21096433)
Many reasons, but one it's notable is that while we increased efficiency of most office workers we also created more distractions (facebook, reddit, hn, etc). This probably balanced out in many professions.
Re:The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen by michlsemn on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:23PM (#21095928)
https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs - STRIKE! Magazine