New employment numbers are out and they’re great news! Oh, wait, we had the thing upside down, they’re actually terrible. 131,000 fewer jobs last month, although that figure includes 141,000 liberal census workers who were let go after the government decided to just make up the census numbers this year. In fact, the private sector added a whole 71,000 jobs in July…71,000 jobs for humans. But how many jobs for robots? Why won’t the government release those important numbers?
71,000 jobs for biological flesh-bags, that seems like a lot, right?
[T]he number of jobs added in July is about half the 125,000 to 150,000 that economists generally say employers need to generate simply to accommodate new entrants to the labor market. With more than 8 million people having lost their jobs during the recession, such tepid job growth can’t begin to plug the hole.
Well, that’s like 1 new job for every 112 laid off people! That seems “tough but fair.” So how is the economy functioning, if none of these companies have employees anymore?
For now, companies appear nervous about expanding their payrolls. “Businesses just don’t want to hire,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics. “Workers are too costly and it’s very easy to substitute technology for labor.”
DAMN YOU RO-BOTS! When is our wimpy liberal government going to build a giant metal-detecting fence to keep these illegal androids from taking our human jobs? America’s only hope is for our captains of industry to realize that paying organic employees is ultimately in their own best interest.
He added that with corporate earnings rising partly on the back of cost-cutting, employers are reluctant to give up profits. “So while corporate earnings were spectacular,” Mr. Sinai said, “the job market just stinks.”
Ha ha, we are all doomed. [NYT]
{ 31 comments }
We need to grab one of those killbots and reprogram it to cut the livers out of any and all CEOs of major corporations. I would have said hearts, but the lack of them would have confused their targeting programs.
Yeah, but who’s going to build the robots? I recommend every unemployed person get advanced engineering degrees from either MIT, Cal Tech or University of Illinois. Boom. Problem solved.
Frakkin’ robots. They’re worse than the muslins. And no birth certificate I’ll wager. Oh Arizona, we were wrong about you — help us now to send these job killing demon-bots back Hell. Or China.
The same companies who are sitting on almost $2 TRILLION in cash, and refusing to hire us meatsacks, are the same ones who wonder why consumer spending is down. Then they worry about the economy, since consumer spending is 2/3 of GDP.
Obviously, corporate a**hattery has been automated.
“So while corporate earnings were spectacular,” Mr. Sinai said, “the job market just stinks.”
Mmmmhmmmm. So, basically, we’ll start hiring when we can pay our lobbying dollars to Speaker Boner and a white President.
[re=633543]just pixels[/re]:
http://www.myretrobaby.com/item/robot-birth-certificate/2632
I think Michael Biehn has been out of work for years; this looks like the perfect opportunity for him to swim back into the labor pool.
Getting people employed is just a government plot to redistribute the wealth. Real patriots owe it to America to stay unemployed.
See! Capitalism works!
Isn’t taking a human’s job a violation of the First Law or something?
[re=633552]facehead[/re]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/japan-hopes-robot-baby-wi_n_624261.html
Sure, consumer spending’s down here. But you can sell your widgets overseas, too, and it’ll take a long time before our unemployment becomes so much of a problem for companies that it offsets the massive savings they enjoy from foreign rights-free workers being paid in sunflower seeds.
It’s not that bad, though, right? I mean, we’re all owners of the means of production here, you know? *pause* Oh, I didn’t realize. Sorry.
Can’t we just put human brains in robot bodies? No need to eat. Nearly impervious to the elements. Extended life and no need for Social Security or Medicare.
So no need to work, really. Just lie around for eons deciding if a cloud looks like a bunny or a Jesus.
Get me my robot body, now.
Shit you can’t even get a $7.00/HR cashier job in retail pharmacy anymore. They have one casheir tending to a bank of “selfcheckout” machines. Most of the big box stores have at least one bank of them to now. Pretty soon you won’t even be able to get a shitty job let alone a good one.
We need to start sending our leaders to Haiti so they can learn how to run a country in which .01% of the population is enormously wealthy and the rest are homeless, sick and starving. See, pasty white people DO have things they can learn from our proud black brothers.
All’s we need to do is come up with some ROBOT PORN so that the robots will be spending half their work day looking at it (real hot-n-heavy, wire-to-wire stuff), and then they’ll all get fired.
This is all because the Democrats are letting the Bush tax cuts expire — small bidness is the engine of job growth, but all small businesses are worried about that three percent so they’re just cold shutting down and going Galt!
[re=633569]jus_wonderin[/re]:
A Cyberman workforce would present some labor issues, since they would tend to “delete” the manangement at the first sign of disagreement. And then pesky Doctors tend to show up in their flying Police Boxes and decimate the workforce. That’s probably the only reason it hasn’t been tried yet.
Those T-800 models are out-of-date, even with that combat-alloy chassis. The poor things are probably only looking for work, or a breadline.
How come we can’t get pictures of the T-101 series. Ideally, the Kristanna Loken model . . . naked.
[re=633592]BlueStateLiberal[/re]: Care to invest in my new venture, tworobotsonescrew.com?
When the robotic chef are perfected there will be a second wave of restaurant layoffs. The first was when the rats took cooking jobs away in those Parisian restaurants.
biological flesh-bags = meat puppets
[re=633569]jus_wonderin[/re]: Can’t we just put human brains in robot bodies?
Yes, that works fine until the brains get too old. Can you imagine a large electro-mechanical Alzheimer’s patient with the strength of 10 men?
(No thanks is necessary, it’s my job to think these things through.)
[re=633545]memzilla[/re]: The same companies who are sitting on almost $2 TRILLION in cash, and refusing to hire us meatsacks, are the same ones who wonder why consumer spending is down.
Just another way of saying, “Hey, how that awesome “trickle-down economics” theory, eh?”
I wuz saying the same thing over at C&L the other day. Coinkydink?
everybody blames illegal immigrants
Sun, 08/01/2010 – 19:17 — virgo47tp
but no one blames computers and robots. Do you see any Mexicans in this picture? You’ve all been taught to hate your fellow workers and not the same old parasite class which has always exploited us. I wonder if robots fall under AZSB 1070? Who has put more Americans out of work?
http://www.harting-mitronics.ch/imperia/md/images/lg/hartingmitronics/anwendungen/sensorik/industrial_robots_700_500x374.jpg
It gets pretty depressing arguing with people that honestly think that leaving tax cuts in place that are costing America 700 billion dollars a year is going to cut the deficit. Why? Because they go to the same people that are sitting on 2 trillion dollars that they won’t spend on hiring Americans, because of the chance that the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire.
So we have people that are benefiting from the Bush Tax Cuts that haven’t been hiring for the last two years that we are supposed to believe will suddenly start spending if the Bush Tax Cuts are extended?
My head hurts.
Obama is a failure. Why can’t he take those businesses by the throat and MAKE THEM hire your lazy neighbor who is living large off of unemployment and having his lights turned off for non-payment? Oh, Obama must be as lazy as your neighbor, that’s why. He’ll never accomplish anything, just like yur neighbor.
Unemployment rates and Tea-Party membership-rates correlate well. Too well.
Welcome to the real world.
I have started studying biology following the prediction of 71,000 jobs in this field. This is really great!!
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