I hate online shopping and now I have another reason to. ROBERT REICH: Americans are getting great deals online, and they like the convenience. But theres a hidden price. With the growth of online retailing, fewer Americans will have jobs in bricks-and-mortar retail stores. Amazon announced last summer it would add 5,000 new jobs to the 20,000 it already has. But not even 25,000 Amazon jobs come near to replacing the hundreds of thousands of retail jobs Amazon has already wiped out, and the hundreds of thousands more it will eliminate in the future. To put this in some perspective you need to know that retail jobs have been the fastest growing of all job categories since the recession ended in 2009. But given the rapid growth of online retailing, that trend cant possibly last. What will Americans do when online sales take over? Add to this the fact that most of whats being sold this holiday season - online and off-line -- is no longer made by Americans. Vast shipping containers of gadgets, garments, and other goodies are fabricated or assembled or sewed together in Asia for the American market. Online retailers are facilitating this move by having these goods shipped directly from Asian factories to distribution centers in America and then to our homes, without ever having to go to an American retail store or even a wholesaler. This means even lower prices and better deals. But it also means fewer jobs and lower pay for many Americans. huffingtonpost/robert-reich/the-true-price-of-great-h_b_4374781.html
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 11:42:39 +0000
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