tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post6741070272494958632..comments2024-03-26T04:19:38.862-07:00Comments on kitchen table math, the sequel: The deskilling of U.S. jobsCatherine Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03347093496361370174noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-78413345814765896362015-08-02T07:46:19.265-07:002015-08-02T07:46:19.265-07:00The company that I work for has found that degrees...The company that I work for has found that degrees and credentials are not very useful for signaling whether an applicant has any skills -- cognitive or otherwise. Thus, we've developed several exercises that test applicants' level of competence at the skills necessary to do the job. We have a few written questions that we use pre-phone interview ("A client sends you the following email. How do you respond?") and several work-related tasks that we use during our on-site interviews.<br /><br />A lot of people are unemployed for a good reason.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-20256259112841334212015-07-28T13:15:55.071-07:002015-07-28T13:15:55.071-07:00I have now dug through the paper. Not only have
t...I have now dug through the paper. Not only have<br />they *NOT* discovered the off-shoring of white-collar<br />jobs, they miss it completely and suggest other causes<br />for a decline in demand for "cognitive skills".<br /><br />The key bit of the paper is this:<br /><br />"Figure 9a captures what we view as the main new<br />insight in our paper: the idea that the demand for<br />cognitive tasks shifted down after 2000 (the bust<br />period). In our model, this happens because of the<br />nature of adjustment of the organizational capital<br />stock but, as we discussed earlier, it could also happen<br />for other reasons such as the arrival of a new technology<br />that is biased against (most) cognitive tasks. What we want<br />to emphasize is less the reason for the reversal in our<br />model than the fact of a reversal itself and its implications<br />for the remainder of the labor market."<br /><br />The most important part is this: "the idea that the demand for<br />cognitive tasks shifted down after 2000"<br /><br />But we don't have any evidence that demand for cognitive<br />tasks shifted down after 2000. We do have *some* evidence<br />that US demand for cognitive tasks shifted down after 2000 ...<br />but this could be because there was less work to be done *or*<br />because the work was being done elsewhere (or other reasons).<br />The paper builds a model to explain why less work for "cognitive<br />tasks" needed to be done after 2000 ... but my guess is that the<br />missing work *was* done, just not in the US.<br /><br />I'll also point out that I don't see any evidence for a lower demand<br />for "cognitive tasks" in the paper. Maybe this is in some of the cited<br />work? My guess, however, is that the decline in journalism jobs is<br />part of what they are discussing ... and the reason for this decline<br />according to their model is that newspapers now have enough journalism<br />IP and no longer need to accumulate it as fast as in the past. Not<br />because the price charged (and thus cost) of news has headed towards<br />zero because of the Internet.<br /><br />I'm not impressed.<br /><br />-Mark RouloAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-23758023509654161852015-07-27T15:25:45.737-07:002015-07-27T15:25:45.737-07:00"No idea what to make of this."
The pap..."No idea what to make of this."<br /><br />The paper is long, but it appears that the authors have<br />discovered off-shoring of white-collar jobs.<br /><br />Figure 11, "Occupational Employment Rate and Supply Index: Management, Professional, Tech"<br />shows that there was a peak in Management, Professional and Tech jobs<br />in 2000 (and another one in 2008 at about the same level ... it would also be<br />useful if the authors had chosen to label the Y-axis in this chart).<br /><br />2000 was the peak of the dot-com boom, so we'd expect a dropoff in<br />techies as lots of unsustainable companies went away. Then we also<br />experienced a shakeout in "technical" jobs as folks discovered that they<br />could not longer command $50/hour to $100/hour for writing HTML by<br />hand.<br /><br />2000 also was probably about when offshoring of programming jobs took<br />off (this is about when my employer got serious about moving jobs to India).<br />The internet was getting enough bandwidth that this was feasible, and this<br />also allowed sending things like "discovery" legal work and radiology analysis<br />off-shore. Surprisingly, lots of these jobs moved to where labor was relatively<br />cheap.<br /><br />If I have time, I'll dig more deeply into the paper (which is pretty opaque ... I<br />can't tell without a detailed read what they mean by "skilled and cognitive"<br />tasks ... I don't know that they include skilled lathe operators, for example.<br />Do they include file clerks?). They may just be showing that the growth in<br />white collar jobs that require sitting at a desk has slowed or stopped since<br />2000. Or that lots of college graduates are working as baristas ...<br /><br />-Mark RouloAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-14793621997166036212015-07-27T09:34:38.391-07:002015-07-27T09:34:38.391-07:00Lots of skilled labor can actually be outsourced t...Lots of skilled labor can actually be outsourced to anywhere in the world, or done by a computer.Auntie Annhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05777983027361603449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-57272809241977591602015-07-27T05:50:52.979-07:002015-07-27T05:50:52.979-07:00So there are more people today with degrees and di...So there are more people today with degrees and diplomas. That really doesn't mean they are skilled or educated, since this increase has been politically manufactured.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com