[c0da]

“Some of the most successful technology companies haven’t done much for job growth: “Take the ubiquitous iPod. It’s created less than 14,000 jobs in the U.S., Internet giant Google, 20,000 employees, Twitter, a mere 300””

It's absolutely absurd to imply that the extent of Google's effect on our economy is a sum of their employees. That quote completely mis-understands how markets work.

Google provides services that have completely revolutionized how people find information and build buisnesses. Of course that has impacted job growth.

[fusiongyro]

I don't disagree, but it's worth noting that if a business comes along and creates 20,000 jobs by putting (say) 100,000 people out of work, that's going to have a negative effect on the economy. Many of those newly unemployed people are going to be using your service to find out how to get their unemployment check.

That said, government protection of buggy whip makers doesn't work. Look at the ridiculous legally mandated benefits for railroad engineers.

I think there's reason to be concerned about how non-information folks are going to be making money in the next fifty years. After all, how much of the economy can be producing hamburgers, entertainment and technology?

[ChuckMcM]

As someone who runs a search engine (Blekko.com) I can tell you that Google and their AdSense program has created way more than 100,000 jobs. I see their web sites all the time, a small bit of cruft or copied content and eleventy-billion ads.

That is a way of saying what economists have said for years, which is that advancements and disruptions create a net pool of more opportunities rather than reduce the total. The proof of that is that the number of jobs that are available in the country continues to rise even as its population goes up.

"I think there's reason to be concerned about how non-information folks are going to be making money in the next fifty years. After all, how much of the economy can be producing hamburgers, entertainment and technology?"

They will become literate, or become supported by someone who is. One of the interesting things you notice reading about the transition to the 'manufacturing age' between the 19th and 20th century was that working people who were thrown out of work by technology their kids had grown up with, and their kids began supporting them with their employable skills. Its worthwhile to look at how the world reacted to those, just as sweeping in their own way, changes.

Elsewhere on HN this week the quote "Humans are a bottomless pit of wants" was shared, that is so true. As long as people want something, there will be a job which involves getting that for them.

[ippisl]

First, at the start of the industrial revolution, people who had to leave their home in the country and come to the city to look for work, had to work very long hours for subsistence pay.

This has only changed with the rise of the labor movement, and a general shift in democratic societies towards a welfare state.

So for a huge positive technological revolution, societal change is needed.

In fact, i think that today we have the right technologies to solve many of the world's problems, just the wrong politics and societal order(globally). Just look at education,healthcare,global hunger, the subprime crisis. The biggest barriers there are political, legal and societal.

And yes, "Humans are a bottomless pit of wants". But that didn't helped the loyal employee - the horse. After the industrial revolution they were left unemployed and sadly went to the glue factory.

[Sambdala]

You mean it's going to have a positive effect on the economy?

You no longer have 100,000 people digging and refilling proverbial holes, so they're now free to contribute in other ways.

Of course that's going to cause some short term friction, but a refusal to see past that friction would still have >90% of us working a family farm for a living.

[Negitivefrags]

Each time menial jobs are removed via automation, in theory all of those now jobless people are freed to work better jobs. In reality, better jobs need more training and technical skills.

It may be due to education or just human nature, but most are unwilling or unable to adapt and learn.

If we are not careful we will end up with a techno-illiterate underclass that are unable to find any work due to not having skills beyond what was required in the jobs that are now replaced by automation.

[nandemo]

Besides, we live in a global society. Americans enjoy a lot of products made in China, ignoring the jobs created elsewhere is a non-starter.

[sampsonjs]

Indeed, without Google and Sillicon Valley's contributions to job growth, we would live in a nightmare world where unemployment has soared past 8 percent.

[eli_gottlieb]

It's a classic accounting problem. Google's accounted impact on jobs is +14,000. Their externalized impact is unknown to us due to lack of a method to calculate it, but it's probably pretty large.