Thursday, July 12, 2007

eBay is Hiring?

Some economic writers BLS "Phantom" Workers Now Account for 56% of Payroll Increase are wondering where are all the new jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is adding. I wonder how the government is counting all the new “internet jobs” like blogging. There are a few success stories of top bloggers making two-hundred thousand a month. TechCrunch Blogger Michael Arrington Can Generate Buzz ... and Cash But I doubt that most blogs make much of anything (me). The revenue is reported to the IRS and even if you are making nearly nothing it may show up as employment. Then there are all the other mini-business/hobbies that can make money on the internet. Most do not pay for the expense of the computer. But is the government counting these as jobs? And are they double counting people who do blogs and have a paying job? Are you becoming a phantom worker every time you sell something on eBay?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The latest jobs report I saw showed a couple of things:
- loss in manufacturing jobs
- loss in retail jobs

So where was the growth?
- govenment jobs
- health services (duh!)
- education

The growth is in non-value adding sectors that do not contribute to economic growth. I would argue that for education because the growth is not showing gains (basic education infrastructure in place and bloated, and the population is not growing...). I would argue that health services are not the basic care kind, but growth in presriptions, managed health, specialist, and retiree care.

So... lots of money is getting sucked up and not much is being produced to offset it. That means a reduction in real earned dollars because as a whole we are paying more for government, health care and education without a significant payback.