My mom and I will call each other with "Question of the day." Most of the time the "daily" question occurs weekly; sometimes it's trivial, sometimes serious.
Here's your question of the day: With our need to adapt to doing more with less in tough economic times - combined with greater technological advances - have we locked ourselves into higher permanent unemployment? Even with an economic recovery, will our unemployment rate stay inflated? Not the staggeringly high rate, but higher than what is considered normal during good times.
If that happens, we might go a very long time before we have a robust economy.
Technology has helped to make workplaces more efficient. By being more efficient, fewer employees are needed.
The goal of any company, big or small, is too maximize profits - so efficiency goes a long way to helping maximize profits. In small communities where the market size is limited, and in many places dwindling, the best and perhaps only way to enhance profitability is by becoming efficient. Fewer people means fewer sales.
For argument's sake let's stick to Northeast Michigan. While we stick to our region, any rural area will work because jobs that won't come back are leaving those areas. I'll use three examples of how technology has had a direct effect on employment.
Here at The News, since I became managing editor, we have three fewer people in the newsroom, which is just one of six or seven departments, depending on how you want classify departments. Not a big number, but it's over 20 percent of our newsroom staff - higher than the state and region's unemployment rate.
With so many people using e-mail we've eliminated the need for one of our typists. We are able to accomplish as much, if not more, simply by not having to handle, sort, decipher hand writing, etc. Digital cameras have made the need for a full-time photographer less necessary. Point-and-shoot cameras make it easy for everyone to shoot without the need to develop film and spend time going through the process - freeing time for other work. That says nothing of the elimination of the expense of film.
Software allows us to do so many things that used to take so many more people to accomplish, both in the newsroom and in other parts of the building. We're more efficient, doing more - much of it at our website - with fewer people.
Now take banking.
What do direct deposit, online banking and ATMs have in common? No teller. There is no face-to-face contact. That makes it incredibly convenient, but it also might mean two or three fewer people per branch. For an example let's say Alpena has 10 branches, that would mean 20 people who wouldn't be needed.
Two examples and we've already eliminated 23 jobs without blinking an eye.
How about grocery shopping? The new express lanes make it more convenient for us to shop. We can check out ourselves and pay for our purchase, all without someone having to handle our goods or money. There is someone to observe and help out if needed, but that person can handle multiple checkout stands when the old system would require one person to check out and one person to bag. Efficiency.
Forget big business. All of the major technology has eliminated hundreds of jobs.
It really becomes a Catch-22 in some respects. Technology makes our life easier and helps business become more efficient and profitable. But it also keeps people from working.
We can hope recovery is going to do the trick, but if we are so efficient (and I'm not saying that is a bad thing) how much more goods and services will be needed before more people are hired. An educated guess would be ...
So I ask again: Has technology locked us into a higher permanent unemployment? Who knows for sure? The worst part is only time will tell - and there are people who can't wait that long to find out.
In the meantime, I'll go into the credit union and do my business face to face and go through checkout stands with cashiers.