Weekly Updates
Weekly Updates
- In my teenage years, I worked as a supermarket checkout operator. Economic textbooks cost money and I needed paid employment. Economics is often circular—I am, once again, employed as a supermarket checkout operator. The critical difference is I am no longer paid. When I go shopping for food today, I work for the supermarket for free; most UK supermarket checkouts are self-service.
- Online retail similarly means the consumer is unpaid shop assistant and checkout operator. It is the consumer who is selecting and replacing items on (virtual) shelves and putting the items through the checkout at the end of the process. Labor that commanded a salary and pension scheme when taking place in a department store is now provided gratis. It is only the warehouse staff who remain as paid employees.
- Economically, the unpaid labor of a consumer is missing from GDP. The same economic/living standard outcome is achieved, but as consumers’ increasing workload is unpaid, it is not recorded as economic activity.
- This presents a challenge when making international comparisons. The GDP of countries with static consumer behavior measures the work done in stores. Countries that have moved to twenty-first century consumer habits miss measuring the work that is still being done.
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