Amazon and Walmart have started hiring at record levels and have already surpassed pre-pandemic numbers. Is this good news or cause for concern?

Warehouse employment is expanding during the winter Holiday season. The United States added 146,700 new warehouse jobs from April to October as companies such as Amazon and Walmart aim to take advantage of the new online era of retail shopping.

This could be seen as a move in the right direction, but the quality of these jobs must also be considered. Workers typically report working 12-hour shifts in dangerous conditions that don't respect the wellbeing of the workers. One worker referred to the working centers as “a COVID box”. …

With recent unemployment increasing and lesser money to spend on luxuries, Americans have to find new ways to enjoy their Holidays.

Earlier this year as we descended into a historic recession where tens of millions of jobs were lost. Now, record spikes in Coronavirus see a resurgence of unemployment. Some experts predict that we may have a decrease in jobs for the first time since April.

Business surveys from Homebase and Kronos see that hiring has been stagnant this month. It seems as if the new wave of the virus and government restrictions on businesses are leading to a hiring freeze.

Of course, the most important consideration in this economy is how consumers will react. For now, they are shopping, traveling, and eating out less. This decrease in demand will invariably lead to a lesser need for workers in all of these sectors and result in layoffs and less hiring. This, coupled with the fact that Americans have not received a stimulus check for months leads to a depleted amount of savings for the average consumer. …

How the pandemic affects certain groups and what jobs will be phased out

The ongoing pandemic has brought some structural changes to our economy. Concepts such as work from home or teleworking have become a common theme.

According to a survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the working population who teleworked at the beginning of the pandemic was about 35%. As the months dragged on, there was a decrease in people teleworking most likely due to the lifting of restrictions. In June this percentage was 31%, in July it was 26%, and in October it was reduced to 21%.

While looking at these statistics, it is evident that some groups were affected more than others. For example, workers with higher levels of education were more likely to have teleworked. …

Classical liberal economics with a plot twist and how it fares in today’s world

In 1759, Adam Smith introduced the concept of the invisible hand in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In Smith’s 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations, revolutionary ideas about the division of labor were made.

Smith’s most famous example is with pins.

He asserted that ten workers could produce 48,000 pins per day if each of eighteen specialized tasks was assigned to particular workers. Average productivity: 4,800 pins per worker per day. But absent the division of labor, a worker would be lucky to produce even one pin per day…(Adam Smith, biography from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics).

A simpler example can be made with a car. Imagine one person trying to build a car from scratch. Isn’t it easier to just have some people work on the engine, others work on the windshield, and the rest work on the tires? Using this method, production can be significantly increased. …

A deep dive into the sorts of relationships we will have in our lives

Humans are social creatures — and since the beginning of time, we have been relying on each other to survive.

There are many different types of relationships. Coworkers, acquaintances, romantic partners, friends, and family are the immediate ones that come to mind.

Regardless of whether you consider yourself an introvert or extrovert, I believe that all humans require some sort of interaction to feel fulfilled.

It is worth exploring the types of relationships we have in life and how they each do their part to help us grow.

Superficial Relationships: Coworkers and Acquaintances

Some relationships are superficial and do not fulfill much else than the basic need to communicate or perform a task. …

The United States has long been obsessed with work culture. Find out how Europe is different and how their change may be the key for American workers to reclaim their rights.

Despite our pending presidential election, hardly any mention of our extreme work culture has been mentioned.

The United States is notorious among developed countries for having a grueling workweek.

In the United States, the average workweek for full-time employees is 41.5 hours. The U.S. has a high percentage of employees who work over 50 hours per week at 11.1%.

This is compared to countries like Spain, Germany, Italy, Finland, Sweden, France, and Denmark whose people all work an average of fewer than 40 hours per week and have comparatively low percentages of working over 50 hours per week.

So why has the country with the highest GDP in the world accepted these conditions? …

An unpopular opinion on how we view work.

Work is a necessary part of life. We must till and harvest the fields. Many philosophers would also argue that work is noble and good for the soul.

But today’s “work” is not the work they are referring to. Today we work an arbitrary amount of hours and are forced to put on a show for our employers. We have many types of jobs that serve no purpose and make little difference to society, yet we embrace this type of digging a hole and covering it up mentality.

Many office workers report only working a few hours of their day. The rest is spent on activities such as watching YouTube, surfing the internet, or playing games. When the boss comes around, you pretending that you are busy. You do this for forty hours for a few decades, and if you don’t die, you get to retire. …

Limits to rationality can make businesses unsuccessful

According to our free-market system companies are motivated by rationality. This means that they will make the best choices for themselves and their self-interests.

Logically, this consists of Employers doing everything in their power to make as much money as possible and have their business survive.

Some people would suggest that entities like companies are not rational actors — that they do things that are against their personal interests. This suggests that they are motivated by emotional, moral, and psychological factors.

Arguments like this could account for the odd billionaire who decides to donate all their money.

It is easy to see why some people may also assume that businesses do not act in their own interests a lot of the time. …