[wavemode]

> When we create jobs for a purpose other than the product of the labor, we’re paying people to waste their time unproductively. This is what happens under full-employment policy. This is what happens when we use expansionary monetary policy to boost consumer demand.

Does the author (or anyone) have a source that establishes and quantifies this assumption that "we're paying people to waste their time unproductively"?

Or is this just that old "Bullshit Jobs" argument of "I don't understand why that job exists nor what they do on a daily basis, therefore that job has no value."

[_heimdall]

I believe it's the bullshit jobs argument. You could point to Twitter though, or really any sizeable corporate layoff that isn't driven by entirely getting rid of departments or products.

Sick days, vacation, and parental leave are also good examples at a small scale. It definitely doesn't hold for every jobs, but if a person can be out of the job for days or weeks without a huge impact on the team it may very well be a mostly bullshit job.

[Timon3]

> Sick days, vacation, and parental leave are also good examples at a small scale. It definitely doesn't hold for every jobs, but if a person can be out of the job for days or weeks without a huge impact on the team it may very well be a mostly bullshit job.

I don't see how this idea holds up to scrutiny. People who do actual work need time off regularly to keep concentration and motivation up, especially over long periods of time. These factors don't matter for bullshit jobs - who's gonna notice if their output is reduced?

The impact of time off is instead directly related to quality of management. People will need time off for various reasons. You can either work together and plan around this, or you can act like it's not the case and have a) less chance of properly planning, b) greater risk of the full team being affected (e.g. when sick colleagues come into work), and c) less happy workers with higher turnover.

[_heimdall]

Sure, I wasn't meaning to argue that any person who can be out sick or on leave without hurting the team is in a bullshit job.

I was just pointing to it as a potential indicator, an example of where we may be paying people to waste their time (that was the GP question).

If a team handles leave well due to management that's going to be very clear to the team, it's intentional and takes active work. If a person can be out unexpectedly for a meaningful amount of time and there's no noticeable impact with that role going undone, it may be that it's a bullshit job. It also may not be, people often exagerate how many bullshit jobs there really are.