Business Sector: Labor Share

Click to enlarge.

I won't go into the details of the custom trend in blue unless someone really wants to know, but I will say that it involves an exponential growth model accelerating to the downside.

June 11, 2012
How to Get a Job? Beat the Machines

One upside of this automation is that applying for jobs has been made considerably easier, an outcome that was intended in the 1990s, when these systems were born and employers were competing to attract applicants. But there has been an unintended downside: That ease, combined with the huge pool of job seekers, now means that employers are overwhelmed with job applications. At the same time, human resource departments have been pushed to cut costs, especially their own head count. The only way to meet those two demands has been to move even further toward automating the entire hiring process.

August 26, 2012
Skilled work, without the worker

Foxconn has not said how many workers will be displaced. But its chairman, Terry Gou, has endorsed a growing use of robots. Speaking of his more than one million employees, he said in January, according to the official Xinhua news agency: "As human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache."

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Business Sector: Labor Share