What % of Today's Jobs do you think are expendable without affecting productivity

[November Rain]

With the credit crunch coming in now and people being made redundant left right and centre, it's become apparent that organisations, especially global ones hire more and more people which don't really affect productivity.

there's a whole culture of middle management or shop floor workings or boards of directors that play very little part in the running of a business but hide in this coporate mesh, keeping their heads down and taking cash and making little impact.

Going on this, and the increasing culture of every more outlandish job titles and job openings available, how many jobs do you think is a bare minimum requirement to keep western civilisation ticking.


please answer as a percentage of total capacity

so saying 20% would mean you believe 20% of today's current jobs could be shed at no affect to productivity.

if you wish to divide up yours answers depending on business sectors feel free.

Take note, you could probably remove more jobs if you decided to consolidate businesses and organisations to remove competition while keeping the same variety of products available.

much love and thanks.

 

[Shemtov]

0%. At least with the economic issues going on right now, We can't spare any jobs. too many people are unemployed.

 

[terry78]

Speaking in a sympathetic light I would say none. Speaking from a fiscal standpoint and if I just didn't care who worked and who didn't, probably about 40%.

 

[November Rain]

0%. At least with the economic issues going on right now, We can't spare any jobs. too many people are unemployed.

you really think everyone in a job contributes to the bottom line?

 

[Shemtov]

you really think everyone in a job contributes to the bottom line?

Nope. but EVERYONE who can get a job needs one right now. if we drop even 1% of jobs right now the unemployment rate will skyrocket.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Speaking as a supervisor, at almost any given time I'd say we take about 10% more people and 10 more hours than we actually need for production.

 

[Majic Walrus]

you really think everyone in a job contributes to the bottom line?

Yes. If say 20% people stopped spending so much money because they didn't have jobs that would affect all of our jobs. We can't afford any more people to be unemployed than we already have.

Speaking as a supervisor, at almost any given time I'd say we take about 10% more people and 10 more hours than we actually need for production.

I agree. I think that my company could afford to hire fewer heads and more good employees without loss of production... However...

As I mentioned before people need to have money so that they can spend so that I can keep making money. In the words of a great thinker... "Money, money, money, money... Some people got to have it, some people really need it."

 

[November Rain]

but a workforce size doesn't always positively correlate with a market size because not all market's are workforce dependant.

say if you deal with cosmetics in a male orientated company, cutting 10% of your male staff isn't going to affect your female market size or potential to generate revenue with females.

that's just one example


besides the question is really solely looking at productivity, not necessarily market.

I'm just looking at the efficiency of most corporation's throughput.

 

[Majic Walrus]

but a workforce size doesn't always positively correlate with a market size because not all market's are workforce dependant.

say if you deal with cosmetics in a male orientated company, cutting 10% of your male staff isn't going to affect your female market size or potential to generate revenue with females.

that's just one example


besides the question is really solely looking at productivity, not necessarily market.

I'm just looking at the efficiency of most corporation's throughput.

Okay, in that case I say that in the industry I work I think we could cut the nnumber of entry-level employees by about 5 percent without severe impact. At lower, middle, and upper management we could cut nearly 8 percent and in back office we could cut at least 10 percent.

As a side note, and something that I'm not proud of and something that I'm looking to change, I work as a Business Development Analyst Manager which translates to "Corportate Fire-You-in-the-Face Guy".

My main responsibilities are determining who isn't being productive and who can be cut. we mainly focus on cutting departments and merging departmental responsibilities. Since I've started this position in may of 2007 we've cut overhead by 15% by merging departments and terminating unproductive employees. Our profits have gone down since I started but I maintain that if your overhead goes down you can afford to lose a little bit of profit if the result is net gain.

 

[November Rain]

what about merging industries and eliminating competition

say if a single company made all the televisions in the us (i assume you are american, i'm not but let's just assume) and a single company had the distribution of these goods etc...

single company run supermarkets so similar products could be sold in larger buildings eliminating the need for multiple companies to have multiple managers and so forth...

 

[Eggyman]

Mid-level managers.

My firm, for instance. Departments have workers that do the grunt work and they are led by a team of supervisors; supervisors collate data on targets, absence, and anything notable; the data is passed from supervisors to a mid-level manager who receives similar data from other offices and departments.

Then, the mid-level manager doesn't do anything... he just passes it on to his manager. His manager covers a lot of departments and has final word on all things. But then that higher-level manager reports to the directors.

I'm only saying this for my firm. I don't know if anyone else sees this problem. But these people don't have anything to do until the new stats are produced on Monday mornings for the last week. The mid-level now are like overpaid data collectors. No joke. It's great pay, though

 

[Majic Walrus]

what about merging industries and eliminating competition

say if a single company made all the televisions in the us (i assume you are american, i'm not but let's just assume) and a single company had the distribution of these goods etc...

single company run supermarkets so similar products could be sold in larger buildings eliminating the need for multiple companies to have multiple managers and so forth...

That would be a monopoly which is against the law and also very damaging to capitalism.

 

[November Rain]

I get a similar notion, especially if you group companies together

you get two competing companies producing a similar product

merge the companies and still have the same two products being produced for markets

merge the sites into one large location, reduce the amount of site managers and maintenance staff, reduce cleaning staff, reduce security staff etc.

reduce the number of technical experts to deal with problems, reduce the amount of quality improvement engineers

reduce the board of governers and also the directors and middle management.

the ground workforce pretty much keeps its jobs and the rest get to keep theirs with on the outside world.

I'm just trying to highlight that businesses generally don't need to employ as many people as they do to get their products out to market.

But as Odison pointed out, jobs are created because people need to be employed so positions are generated that aren't particularly efficient but keeps jobs open to society. This generates business with other jobs and so forth.

 

[November Rain]

That would be a monopoly which is against the law and also very damaging to capitalism.

even if it was a national organisation? or the sector was nationalised.

 

[Ahura Mazda]

It is an interesting question but one which has many apects to it. One thing which I doubt many have considerred is the part where the person with the job obtains income which they then expend on products of companies who are motivated by the potential increase in revenues to increase their productivity.

If you are regarding just one aspect of a work chain without looking at all the circumstances or possible effects then many jobs could be deemed as 'expendable'. However, even a doorman may increase productivity of certain activities as they may increase the speed which people may enter with and improve their mood as potential clients.

 

[November Rain]

nice input ahura.

So you're saying while an individual's input into their own individual company may not be vital to their productivity, it may be influencial to another companies' market and therefore productivity of society as a whole. That's kinda what Odinson said isn't it.

alright, lets look at it this way

how many people do you think you can afford to get rid of.

alright, use your own company as a guise.

by streamlining procedures and making it leaner and upgrading and enhacing the scope of jobs and also providing more autonomous employers so individual supervising could be limited...

how many jobs could you cut if you just had super autonomous employees. that's including your own jobs as it were...

 

[Majic Walrus]

even if it was a national organisation? or the sector was nationalised.

If you plan on changing the entire system of economics in the US than it's a great plan. What you're talking about is getting rid of the kind of capitalism that we have in the US.

 

[November Rain]

I just want to see what type of system could be put in place that doesn't interfere with the everyday person's lifestyle.

if anything it may open it up since fewer people actually need to work so either a more part time lifestyle or opening up people to work in another *as yet undisclosed* sector.

I've been doing some lateral thinking lately so i'm just trying to see if the logistic basis pass first with 'the outside world'.

Let's think about this though, skimming as much as possible, even with re-motivation and education of employees. A whole new cultural approach to working.

 

[Ahura Mazda]

nice input ahura.

So you're saying while an individual's input into their own individual company may not be vital to their productivity, it may be influencial to another companies' market and therefore productivity of society as a whole. That's kinda what Odinson said isn't it.

alright, lets look at it this way

how many people do you think you can afford to get rid of.

alright, use your own company as a guise.

by streamlining procedures and making it leaner and upgrading and enhacing the scope of jobs and also providing more autonomous employers so individual supervising could be limited...

how many jobs could you cut if you just had super autonomous employees. that's including your own jobs as it were...

First off, I had not read the previous posts which was my mea culpa.

Second, in all honesty, given the current work load (we are an investment firm) I could get rid of everyone besides myself and my accountant. But I would never do that and keep people on to facilitate my own quality of life.

What I said in my previous post is that if you look at any work chain without looking beyond it there are ways of streamlining but it might actually be detrimental overall.

I have been part of advising certain Companies while acquiring others to fire a great number as a way of boosting their stock price. Of course, the term we used was synergies. However, I do not think letting people go is always the best way of increasing productivity for the Company and essentially for the government as a whole.

 

[Majic Walrus]

I just want to see what type of system could be put in place that doesn't interfere with the everyday person's lifestyle.

if anything it may open it up since fewer people actually need to work so either a more part time lifestyle or opening up people to work in another *as yet undisclosed* sector.

I've been doing some lateral thinking lately so i'm just trying to see if the logistic basis pass first with 'the outside world'.

Let's think about this though, skimming as much as possible, even with re-motivation and education of employees. A whole new cultural approach to working.

The problem is that if you are the only company that produces TVs your goal is not to "compete" your goal is to produce the absolute maximum number of TVs that you can to gain the most insane profit amounts you can get. So instead of asking people to work part time to make exactly what they need to make they will them work double time to make even more product and then even more money.

 

[November Rain]

well that depends whether the companies goal is the make money or if it is to supply tv's to its market.

if you tallied this idea with the 'society without money' thread i made, it could lead to freeing up a good chunk of folk.

 

[November Rain]

First off, I had not read the previous posts which was my mea culpa.

Second, in all honesty, given the current work load (we are an investment firm) I could get rid of everyone besides myself and my accountant. But I would never do that and keep people on to facilitate my own quality of life.

What I said in my previous post is that if you look at any work chain without looking beyond it there are ways of streamlining but it might actually be detrimental overall.

I have been part of advising certain Companies while acquiring others to fire a great number as a way of boosting their stock price. Of course, the term we used was synergies. However, I do not think letting people go is always the best way of increasing productivity for the Company and essentially for the government as a whole.

I do understand in order to properly keep productivity you have to look at the entire organisation as a system and target your bottle necks and what not and work everything else around those.

thanks, i may have to go now but throw in ideas and think about looking at it from other sectors.

what are the limiting factors and what are the things that need to be adressed.

you mentioned quality so workload is important. How much workload are you wiling to spread out or is the average person willing to take onboard.

I'm young in my career so i'm looking to take on more, when does the balance start shifting to wishing to take on less?

 

[Majic Walrus]

well that depends whether the companies goal is the make money or if it is to supply tv's to its market.

if you tallied this idea with the 'society without money' thread i made, it could lead to freeing up a good chunk of folk.

Well I think that a "company's" goal is to MAKE MONEY. If there were a society without money we wouldn't really have companies in the understood sense. What we would have, would be ****.

We simply would have have government provided services. We all know how government provided services work, just look at the USPS. It's **** because it can afford to be.

The reason that communist societies have failed as of now is because workers have no motivation to work to get paid with invisible money so that can get the invisible crap that everyone else makes. If everyone is equal than there's nothing to strive for, no matter how hard you work you will only be as good as your ******ed cousin who works beside you.

 

[Wylie Times]

That would be a monopoly which is against the law and also very damaging to capitalism.

What he said....

Also a lack of competition typically results in a massive drop in quality.

 

[Paradoxium]

This is a simplification.

You need to make certain distinctions before you ask questions like this: private jobs vs. public jobs. On top of which you also need to account long term or short term productivity.

For what it is worth, Public jobs been growing as a whole. But private ones are the types that keeps things rolling. To me private jobs denote more value creation whereas public ones are value transference. Less private jobs, less money for public jobs... In addition, the American economy is damn near service based (servicing to themselves and not really all over the world - ergo trade deficits), and has no balance of manufacturing.

If you are talking about long term, the current system is unsustainable and the percentage that is expendable, you probably don't want to hear....