Imagine a scenario where grocery stores sold meals/food/ingredients in portions too small for even a single person. At that point, people would probably be compelled (I like this word better than “forced”) to buy them. Because they were compelled to do so, the prices would rise.
There is a finite amount of food, some of which is packaged in portions-too-small. Because of the less-than-widespread availability of normal-sized portions, some people simply have to get the too-small-portions… it’s all that’s left. Since people buy them at inflated prices, this causes food distributors to package yet more in the too-small-portions, higher profit margin. At some point, some equilibrium is reached, but by the time that happens it’s a large fraction that is sold Too Small™, and even the remainder carries a premium (since many people who don’t want to be gouged are bidding on a limited supply of normal portions).
In such a situation, it would be a legitimate power of government to put a stop to the nonsense and say “you’re not allowed to do that”. It doesn’t do so currently, because there’s no need to do that. For food. That situation is a little far-fetched, it is some local minimum that wouldn’t be easy to reach from where we are now, but would be quite sticky and hard to leave if circumstances ever did drive things there.
I think we’re stuck in that local minima now, for employment. If some business legitimately only needs 15 or 20 hours of labor per week, then there is no reason to disallow this. If there is a business that needs 400 hours of labor per week, then there is no reason to split that up among 20 part-time workers unless they are trying to manipulate the labor market.
It may be counter-intuitive that it’s possible to manipulate the market that way, and I doubt very much that most of them are perfectly aware that they’re doing it… but so many are partially aware of it. How many stories have I read on r/antiwork where someone’s griping that their manager is fucking with them by giving them zero-hour weeks and so on. Many more offer part-time because it sidesteps the requirement to offer medical insurance.
Since at least the first Bush term, I’ve heard the joke “the economy’s so great, everyone has a job followed up by the second guy saying yeh I know I have two of them”. This is a big deal, even if it doesn’t seem like it. And changing it might make a big difference.
I think there are people who want part-time jobs, and enough legitimate excuse for part-time jobs for that to (mostly) match. I think (at least in the US), that the proliferation of part-time jobs far out-supplies either the demand for those, or the excuse for those.
Practically all of retail and restaurant work is such, and at least on reddit’s antiwork sub, that seems to be quite alot of what people complain about.
Imagine a scenario where grocery stores sold meals/food/ingredients in portions too small for even a single person. At that point, people would probably be compelled (I like this word better than “forced”) to buy them. Because they were compelled to do so, the prices would rise.
There is a finite amount of food, some of which is packaged in portions-too-small. Because of the less-than-widespread availability of normal-sized portions, some people simply have to get the too-small-portions… it’s all that’s left. Since people buy them at inflated prices, this causes food distributors to package yet more in the too-small-portions, higher profit margin. At some point, some equilibrium is reached, but by the time that happens it’s a large fraction that is sold Too Small™, and even the remainder carries a premium (since many people who don’t want to be gouged are bidding on a limited supply of normal portions).
In such a situation, it would be a legitimate power of government to put a stop to the nonsense and say “you’re not allowed to do that”. It doesn’t do so currently, because there’s no need to do that. For food. That situation is a little far-fetched, it is some local minimum that wouldn’t be easy to reach from where we are now, but would be quite sticky and hard to leave if circumstances ever did drive things there.
I think we’re stuck in that local minima now, for employment. If some business legitimately only needs 15 or 20 hours of labor per week, then there is no reason to disallow this. If there is a business that needs 400 hours of labor per week, then there is no reason to split that up among 20 part-time workers unless they are trying to manipulate the labor market.
It may be counter-intuitive that it’s possible to manipulate the market that way, and I doubt very much that most of them are perfectly aware that they’re doing it… but so many are partially aware of it. How many stories have I read on r/antiwork where someone’s griping that their manager is fucking with them by giving them zero-hour weeks and so on. Many more offer part-time because it sidesteps the requirement to offer medical insurance.
Since at least the first Bush term, I’ve heard the joke “the economy’s so great, everyone has a job followed up by the second guy saying yeh I know I have two of them”. This is a big deal, even if it doesn’t seem like it. And changing it might make a big difference.
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I think there are people who want part-time jobs, and enough legitimate excuse for part-time jobs for that to (mostly) match. I think (at least in the US), that the proliferation of part-time jobs far out-supplies either the demand for those, or the excuse for those.
Practically all of retail and restaurant work is such, and at least on reddit’s antiwork sub, that seems to be quite alot of what people complain about.