{"id":276,"date":"2006-01-17T01:00:45","date_gmt":"2006-01-17T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=276"},"modified":"2006-01-10T21:22:43","modified_gmt":"2006-01-11T05:22:43","slug":"shrinking-workforce-is-good-for-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=276","title":{"rendered":"Shrinking Workforce is Good for Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve been talking about the workforce “crisis” and the drian of senior talent as baby boomers retire in droves. I thought I’d present another viewpoint<\/a> – this one from the Economist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The crucial question is therefore what the effect of demographic decline is on the growth of GDP per person. The bad news is that this looks likely to slow because working-age populations will decline more rapidly than overall populations. Yet this need not happen. Productivity growth may keep up growth in GDP per person: as labour becomes scarcer, and pressure to introduce new technologies to boost workers’ efficiency increases, so the productivity of labour may rise faster. The Economist, Januray 5, 2006. “Incredible shrinking countries.” Retrieved from the Economist.com on January 5, 2005.<\/footnote><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nThis article does not really address the shortage of talent, but some other positive affects a decrease in workforce population might have – in this case technology increases that will be necessary to maintain productivity levels. I’m not sure this is necessarily true. First of all, if there is a shortage of talent, this should also apply to innovation industries that will need to create this technology. Second, there is some serious doubt whether technology can keep up with Moore’s Law<\/a>, let alone increasing innovation to make up for decreases in workforce.<\/p>\n

People love to worry\u2014maybe it’s a symptom of ageing populations\u2014but the gloom surrounding population declines misses the main point. The new demographics that are causing populations to age and to shrink are something to celebrate. Humanity was once caught in the trap of high fertility and high mortality. Now it has escaped into the freedom of low fertility and low mortality. Women’s control over the number of children they have is an unqualified good\u2014as is the average person’s enjoyment, in rich countries, of ten more years of life than they had in 1960. Politicians may fear the decline of their nations’ economic prowess, but people should celebrate the new demographics as heralding a golden age. ibid<\/footnote><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought it rather interesting that the Economist would put out social commenteary like this. I’m not going to comment, but I wanted to at least point it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been talking about the workforce “crisis” and the drian of senior talent as baby boomers retire in droves. I thought I’d present another viewpoint – this one from the Economist. The crucial question is therefore what the effect of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hr-technology","category-workforce-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}